Globecooking recipe : Ajvar tarts (Serbia)

One of the ingredients in my Serbian-themed Kitchen Trotter box was a jar of ajvar, a traditional red pepper condiment that can be eaten spread on bread, as a side dish or, as in the recipe that they suggested, in little tartlets. They can be eaten hot or cold, as an appetiser on their own or with salad or rice as a main meal. They'd also be great for packed lunches and picnics.

If you want to try making your own, wikipedia tells you how and it all sounds simple enough, although quite time-consuming :  "In order to produce ajvar, bell peppers and aubergines (eggplants) are roasted whole on a plate on an open fire, a plate of wood in a stove or in an oven. The baked peppers must briefly rest in a closed dish, to allow them to cool and to allow the flesh to separate from the skin. Next, the skin is carefully peeled off and the seeds are removed. The peppers are then ground in a mill or chopped into tiny pieces (this variant is often referred to as Pindjur). Finally, the resulting mush is stewed for a couple of hours in large pots. Sunflower oil and garlic are added at this stage in order to condense and reduce the water, as well as to enhance later conservation. Salt (and sometimes also vinegar) is added at the end and the hot mush is poured directly into glass jars, which are sealed immediately."

They were so simple to throw together that I ended up multitasking, making cream of tomato soup (click through for the recipe) and cornflake cakes while they were in the oven, so I totally forgot to take photos of the finished tarts. They did look exactly like the picture on the recipe card for once though !

Ajvar tarts

ingredients:

120g flour

1/2tsp baking powder

100ml fizzy spring water

60 ml sunflower oil

1/2tsp salt

or you can replace all of the above with a pack of ready-made puff pastry if you're in a rush (which is what I did)

 toasted sesame seeds

a jar of ajvar

If making the pastry from scratch, put the flour, baking powder, salt and a few teaspoons of sesame seeds in a bowl, then gradually mix in the water and oil to form a ball of dough. Roll out the pastry (homemade or shop bought) and use a cookie cutter to cut out circles of pastry.

Use the circles of pastry to line the holes of a muffin tin.

Bake in the oven for 10 minutes until golden brown and leave to cool. If you used puff pastry, you might want to press down the flaky part in the centre (or you could use baking beans to bake them blind, if you have the time).

Once the pastry has cooled, fill them with ajvar and sprinkle with some sesame seeds.

I may have forgotten to take a photo of the finished ajvar tarts, but I did take one of the caramel tarts that I made for the kids. They are identical except I switched the ajvar for the end of a jar of salted caramel spread that was lurking in the cupboard.

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Adding to this month's #KitchenClearout linky for the caramel tarts which used up a jar of salted caramel spread that we'd brought back from Brittany last year.