17 Oct A Molewa’s Kitchen recipe: Gluten free beetroot and kohlrabi tart with goats cheese and kale pesto

This recipe was provided by Molewa’s Kitchen in our recent FaithfulFood Challenge.

This is my absolute favorite recipe for a pastry crust. I use it for a variety of sweet, as well as savory dishes; apple pie, tarts or quiches. Whereas the sweet version requires 100 grams of icing sugar, the savory version does well with some rosemary and parsley. Now, the exciting part about this recipe is that it doesn’t matter whether you use gluten-free all-purpose flour or ordinary cake flour.

I prefer to stay away from wheat and therefore like to opt for wheat- or gluten-free. I like to mix my own gluten-free all-purpose flour though because I can be sure to know what’s in it and secondly it’s just so much fun making use of all these fabulous gluten-free flours and starches that are out there. Just forget all your fears about gluten-free baking and let’s play.
Here’s the golden rule: 40% whole-grain gluten-free flours (millet-flour, chickpea flour, brown rice flour buckwheat flour etc.), mixed with 60% white starches (white rice flour, potato starch, corn-starch, tapioca starch etc.)

Nut flours or seed flours belong to a different category, they are oily, work differently and cannot be used for every purpose. Hence, let’s forget about them when making a classic gluten-free all-purpose flour for a shortcrust.

Ingredients

What you need to make 1kg of gluten-free all-purpose flour
300 g of tapioca starch
300 g of potato starch
200 g of millet flour
200 g of brown rice flour
*shake well and keep in an airtight container in a dark and dry place

for savory shortcrust
500 g of homemade gluten-free all-purpose flour
2 eggs (I use pasture-reared eggs from Usana Farm)
Small handful of chopped rosemary and parsley
Dash of ethically sourced full-fat milk
250 g of butter
*whatever is left over, keep wrapped in cling-wrap in your freezer

Filling for 2 tarts
1 kg finely sliced beetroot ( I source mine from my local vegetable farmer Comrade Carrot)
500 g finely slices kohlrabi (I source mine from the ERF 81 market at Tyisa Nabanye)
200 g goats feta
100 g locally sourced grass-fed labneh
Organic Black Cumin Seeds to sprinkle
Crede Organic Olive Oil to drizzle

Method:

To make the savoury shortcrust
1. Sieve flour over a large clean surface, add cubes of cold butter and herbs.
2. Mix the eggs and milk in a separate bowl.
3. Knead the butter into the flour as if you are trying to make crumbles.
4. Once everything is crumbly add your liquid mixture and knead gently while forming a ball.
5. Dust ball with a little bit of extra flour, wrap in cling wrap and rest in the fridge for 30 minutes.
6. Then roll out and fit into your oven dish or spring-form. Here I have used enamel pans, befitting the style of this lunch.

To make the filling
I have a fantastic and simple recipe for a fragrant kale pesto here, which I love to use a lot for all sorts of occasions. The only thing that I did different today was that I used toasted pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds instead of nuts and olive oil. Each time, I make it by hand, as I find using the mortar and pestle meditative. For this recipe, I mixed a big spoon full with a generous dash of ethically sourced labneh from the Camphill Village. Now, I smeared the inside with a thick layer of this creamy mixture to add a lovely herby flavour to my tart.