Emily's peach and almond tart

One of the things I love about social media is that it's just that: social. You make friends with people through exchanging tweets and 'liking' their images on Instagram.

Emily is an Instagram friend where she posts as emilyscotthk. She's the very talented chef at the St Tudy Inn near Bodmin in Cornwall and uploads beautiful pictures of her restaurant, her food and the surrounding Cornish countryside and coast. I asked her for a seasonal recipe and she came up with this delicious tart.

Emily writes: "Peaches evoke memories for me sitting outside for breakfast on my grandparents’ terrace in the South of France with the wonderful scent of lavender and rosemary and the sound of the busy crickets.

A peach and almond tart is a lovely end to any meal, a perfect summer fruit. Substitute other fruit such as raspberries, apricots, blackberries or plums instead of peaches depending on the season. A household favourite, especially with my children.

Serves 4-6

Ingredients

For the peaches:

4-6 peaches, washed, skinned and sliced.

For the pastry:

250g /8oz plain flour

20g/1oz caster sugar

1 whole free-range egg

1 free-range egg yolk

125g/4oz unsalted butter

A little cold water

For the almond filling:

200g/7oz ground almonds

200g/7oz unsalted butter at room temperature

200g/7oz caster sugar

2 whole eggs

grated zest of 1 lemon

You will also need a 23cm round tin about 2.5cm deep or 6 individual 12x7.5cm/3in fluted mini tartlet tins (as pictured)

Method:

Pastry:

Place the flour in a food processor along with the sugar, whole egg and yolk. Dice the butter into small cubes and add to the bowl. Blitz. Add a tablespoon of cold water and continue to process, the dough will begin to come together into a smooth ball. Chill in the fridge for 30 minutes while you make the filling.

Filling:

Place the softened butter with the sugar and mix until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time. Fold in the ground almonds. When finished you should have a soft paste that quite easily drops from a spoon. Remove from the bowl and stir in the lemon zest.

When ready to use. Generously flour your work surface. Roll out the pastry and line your tart case or cases with it, pressing firmly into the sides with your thumb. Chill for 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 190C/375F/Gas5. Remove the tart case/s from the fridge. Pour in the almond filling and arrange the peaches decoratively – and return to the middle shelf of the oven. Cook for 35-40 minutes more or until the surface is golden brown and the top is firm to the touch. (Individual tarts will only take 15 -20 mins.)

Cool and serve with a jug of pouring cream or a dollop of crème fraîche.

What to drink: This is exactly the sort of dessert that shows off a good dessert wine like a young Sauternes or similar style sweet wine from Bordeaux or the Bordeaux region. (Monbazillac is good value.)

Emily cooks at the St Tudy Inn, near Bodmin. Tel: 01208 850656

Recipe photograph © David Griffen

Fridge- or freezer-foraged cheese, onion and parsley pie

This is the kind of recipe (or rather idea) that I used to put on my old blog The Frugal Cook. But as I’ve given up on it (I know - I shouldn’t have done) I’m posting it here.

It stemmed from having bought a massive bunch of parsley in our local French supermarket for 85p about which I subsequently had a lively discussion on Twitter as to whether you could buy the same amount in a UK supermarket for the price. (I still maintain you can’t!)

Anyway having bragged about how much I’d bought I felt obliged to use up as much as possible and decided to create a makeshift supper combining it with some ingredients that had been lurking in the freezer since our last trip to France at Christmas.

Although this is inspired by the Greek pie spanakopitta - not least because I mistakenly thought I had some feta lurking in the freezer - it can basically be made with whatever you have to hand but you basically need some kind of herbs or greens, some kind of onion and some kind of cheese. And pastry of course!

Serves 4

2 tbsp olive oil

20g butter

1 bunch of new season’s onions (about 300-350g) or a bunch of spring onions or a large sweet onion

2 cloves of garlic, crushed

a big bunch of flat leaf parsley (about 200g, I’m guessing) or a similar quantity of spinach or other greens, washed and roughly chopped. Include some stalks if they’re not too tough.

About 175g feta or other sheep cheese (I used Manchego and a bit of Cantal). Basically whatever you have in the fridge.

1 egg, beaten

A sheet of ready-rolled or a block of puff pastry, thawed (about 250g although the pack I used was a circular tart base that weighed 230g)

Preheat the over to 220°C. Heat the oil in a frying pan, then add the butter. Once it starts foaming, tip in the chopped onions and fry for a couple of minutes. Add the crushed garlic, stir and take off the heat. Leave to cool for 5 minutes then tip in the chopped parsley or greens and the grated cheese and half the beaten egg. Season with pepper and a little salt, depending how salty the cheese is.

Unroll the pastry onto a floured table or board, rolling it out a little more if you can. Work out how you’re going to make your pastry parcel, spoon the filling onto the middle of the pastry sheet or circle and fold over the sides, brushing the exposed edges with the remaining beaten egg to help it stick together.

Brush the surface of the pie with egg then cut three slits in the top. Bake for about 10-12 minutes then turn the heat down to 190°C and cook for another 10-15 minutes or so until nicely browned. Remove the pie from the oven and rest for 10 minutes then serve with warm steamed asparagus (as I did) or a salad.

What to drink: I think this is more a white wine dish than a red. We drank Picpoul but any other crisp dry white would work. Assyrtiko if you want to keep the Greek theme going.

Roast harissa butter chicken and cracked wheat

What do you do if it's a perfect summer day and you still want a Sunday roast? Make this fabulous recipe from Georgie Hayden's wonderful book Stirring Slowly, one of my favourite books of last year

Georgie writes: "This is a perfect Sunday dinner if you want something a little different but still really special. Once you’ve cooked your chicken this way I guarantee you’ll be converted, and any leftover buttery chicken is epic in a sandwich the next day.

Serves 4

4 garlic cloves, peeled

1 preserved lemon

1 teaspoon cumin seeds

1 teaspoon coriander seeds

1 teaspoon sweet smoked paprika

2 tablespoons harissa

a bunch of coriander

a bunch of parsley

sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

80g butter, at room temperature

olive oil

1 x 1.6kg chicken

1 lemon

425ml fresh chicken stock

1 onion

2 tomatoes

350g bulgur wheat

Greek yoghurt, to serve

Preheat your oven to 190°C/gas 5. Peel the garlic. Halve the preserved lemon and remove the seeds. In a dry frying pan toast the cumin and coriander seeds until lightly toasted. Place in a food processor along with the paprika, preserved lemon, harissa, half the coriander and parsley (stalks and all) and the garlic. Season well and blitz to a paste. Add the butter and 2 tablespoons of olive oil and pulse until smooth.

Use your hands to carefully prise the chicken skin away from each breast, to create a pocket. Slash the skin on the thighs and rub the butter all over – under the skin mainly and all over the top. Halve the lemon and pop it into the chicken cavity, then place in a small snug-fitting roasting tray. Put it into the oven and roast for around 1¼ hours, or until golden and crisp but cooked through – check that the juices run clear around the thigh area.

Baste the chicken a couple of times during cooking with the buttery juices in the tray.

When the chicken has about 20 minutes left to cook, start the bulgur wheat. Heat your chicken stock in a medium pan. Meanwhile peel and finely chop the onion, and deseed and finely chop the tomatoes. Pour a glug of olive oil into a saucepan and put on a medium-low heat. Add the onion and sauté for 10 minutes, until soft. Add the tomatoes and cook for a further 5 minutes, then add the bulgur wheat. Stir for a minute, then add the hot chicken stock and season lightly. Bring to the boil, pop onthe lid, then reduce the heat to low. Simmer for 8 minutes, until the wheat is cooked through and fluffy, then remove from the heat. Cover the pan with a tea towel and put a lid on top to keep it warm. Chop the rest of the coriander and parsley leaves and stir through the bulgur wheat.

When the chicken is ready, leave to rest for 10 minutes, then squeeze over the lemon from the cavity and carve it up – you can carve traditionally or shred the meat into the buttery juices to keep the meat insanely moist.

Serve with the bulgur wheat and tangy thick Greek yoghurt.

What to drink: I'd personally go for a strong dry rosé with this - Spain does some good ones - but you could also drink a medium-bodied juicy Rhône or Languedoc red or even a crisp white like an assyrtiko.

Extracted from Stirring Slowly by Georgina Hayden, published by Square Peg in hardback at £20

Bayonne ham tart with garlic (Tarte au Jambon et à l’Ail)

A great recipe to make for any Bastille Day celebrations you might be having from Pierre Koffmann's fabulous Memories of Gascony, one of my all-time favourite cookbooks.

Tarte au Jambon et à l’Ail

serves 4-6

3 heads of garlic

50 g/2 oz duck fat

75 g/3 oz bayonne ham, thinly sliced

1 tablespoon chopped parsley

200 ml/7 fl oz milk

2 egg yolks

2 slices of white bread, crumbled

freshly ground pepper

250 g/9 oz pâte à tarte (or shortcrust pastry)

Preheat the oven to 200ºC/400ºF/gas 6. Cut three 10 cm/4 in squares of foil.

Place a head of garlic and one-quarter of the fat in the middle of each square and wrap tightly in the foil. Place in a roasting pan and bake in the preheated oven for 20–25 minutes, until soft.

Heat the rest of the fat in a frying pan and quickly fry the ham for about 10 seconds on each side, adding the parsley at the last moment.

To make the custard mixture, mix together the milk, egg yolks and breadcrumbs and season with a little pepper. Place in the fridge until needed.

Roll out the pastry into a circle to fit a 20 cm/8 in flan dish and line the dish with the pastry. Bake blind in the preheated oven for 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, unwrap and peel the garlic. Place it in the part-baked flan case together with the ham. Pour in the custard mixture and bake in the hot oven for 25 minutes.

Pierre suggests serving this hot but I think it would be pretty good at room temperature if you wanted to make it ahead.

What to drink: It would be rude not to drink a Gascogne wine with this wouldn't it? A fruity white Côtes de Gascogne I suggest, or a Gascogne rosé. Or , if you fancy a red, you could go for a Gaillac

From Memories of Gascony by Pierre Koffmann, published by Mitchell Beazley, £30 (www.octopusbooks.co.uk)