Mike van de Elzen: Onion tart-tatin with asparagus and fried haloumi

Onion tart-tatin with asparagus and fried haloumi

Cook time: 30 minutes

Prep time: 30 minutes

Serves: 6 

1 batch short crust  

2 small red onions, peeled and sliced into 1cm rings  

2 tbsp grapeseed oil  

1 tsp flaky salt freshly  

Ground black pepper  

4 tbsp caster sugar  

1 big hand asparagus  

8 servings haloumi  

1 cup flour  

2 tbsp oil  

10 sage leaves  

1 fresh lemon  

Handful rocket leaves, to serve

Preheat a oven to 180*C  

Place sugar in a small heavy-based frypan over high heat. Cook until sugar dissolves, then bring to the boil, stirring continuously.  

Let sugar bubble until it turns a light caramel colour, place the onions into a large circle leaving a 2-3cm gap around the edge. Cut the pastry sheet to the same size as the pan. Lay the pastry over the onion and press edges down so they touch the bottom of the pan. Place in oven and bake for 25 minutes.  

Bring a large pot of water to the boil and season heavily with salt, drop in the asparagus and count to 10. Remove from the water and drop into iced water. Remove when cold and drain. Set aside ready to serve.  

Clean and reheat a cast iron pan, add in the 2 tbsp of oil and then run the haloumi through the flour and then carefully lower into the pan, fry on a gentle heat until golden, then flip. Refresh with a good squeeze of lemon and add in the sage leaves before serving.  

Remove the tarts from the oven and quickly turn over onto a plate, garnish with the asparagus, haloumi and rocket leaves. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudgin
from News Talks.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
EDB joining me now it is our residence chief Mike
Vander Alison.

Speaker 3 (00:15):
Good morning, Good morning to you.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
I was just saying how much I love Halloomi and
how it just versatile it is and we can make
a meal out of it. You've got a lovely recipe
for us today which also involves asparagus, which I believe
is being harvested on the farm at the moment.

Speaker 3 (00:33):
Yeah, it's popping up everywhere now like we we we
grow our asparagus and bath tubs and it's quite a
process of sparagus. I haven't anyone's given it a world.
It takes about three years because as as the first year,
basically you're multa back and second year your multu bacan.
Third year, if you're lucky, then you can start harvesting.

(00:56):
And we've got we we have green asparagus. So every
time we go up there'll be like maybe five new
spares of asparagus in each tub. So it's like ooh,
I'll wait for one more day and I'll have a meal,
and then you go back the next day and the
things about a meter long, and it's very tough as
old boots.

Speaker 2 (01:14):
Does. Green and purple asparagus taste the same.

Speaker 3 (01:18):
Yes, they do. And it's funny enough when you actually
blanch purple asparagus, it actually turns green, so it's like
what happened there. But probably the absolute top of the
line asparagus is white asparagus. It's got a super limited season.
You'll probably start seeing it popping up here and there.

(01:39):
And white asparagus is grown in darkness, so no photosynthesis,
no color, no sunlight, and the color that it develops
is somewhat different to asparagus. It still gives you smelly wheeze,
just saying, but it's also it's super sweet. It's got
a slight nutty flavor to it. Because it's grown in darkness,

(02:02):
it's quite labor intenses, so it's a lot more expensive.
But if you see it, blanche it and serve it,
maybe blanche it ten seconds into cold water, stop it
from cooking, and then just ever so slightly saute in
it a little bit oil and some fresh flaky salt
and eat it like that or yu yum.

Speaker 2 (02:22):
Now I've never I'm not sophisticated enough to say that
I've ever come across white spargus, but it does sound
absolutely lovely. So take me through this recipe you've got
for us today.

Speaker 3 (02:32):
So today we've got onion tarttan with sparagus fried to
lumi So very quickly, preheat your other one hundred and
eighty degrees into a small, heavy based saucepan. You want
to add some sugar, so I've got about two tablespoons
of sugar. Add that into the bottom of your saucepan
and turn that on until the sugar starts to dissolve,
and then it goes past dissolved into a light caramel.

(02:54):
Once you get that beautiful golden brown virtually going on
dark brown, turn that pan off and then set that aside.
I've got two small onions that I've just peeled and
sliced into quite large or maybe thick, maybe one centimeter rings.
Very carefully, as that sugar may still be quite hot.
Layer your onions into the bottom of that sugar and
then just press it down. And then you want a

(03:15):
piece of short crust pastry that's been cut to the
outside length or the outside diameter of your fry pan.
Lay that over your onions, and then just press the
edges down so that the edges are touching the caramel.
Fire that into the oven. That's going to be about
twenty five minutes. Why are you waiting for that? Bring
a large pot of water to the boil. Heavily salt
it so you know, perly to water. You're probably looking

(03:36):
at a tablespoon of sugar. It seems like a lot,
but you want to flavor that asparagus. Bring it to
the boil once it's at a heavy boil, has some
ice water at the ready. Drop the all important asparagus in.
So I've got a big handful of asparagus. It's in
seasoned right now, so now's the time to have it.
Drop it into the water. Count to ten, pull it
out into ice water, stop it from coloring. Bring out

(03:59):
all that beautiful green color that you've got in the asparagus,
and then drain it. Set that aside, and then bring
another pan to the to the heat, a little bit
of oil and goes to you hallumi. Sometimes we run
the hallumi through a little bit of flour if you
want to. You don't need to run that through a
little bit of flour until it's golden. Turn it over
golden and then I jam in the juice of a

(04:20):
lemon just to finish that hallumi off. And then if
you want, you could drop in your asparagus at this point,
just to give it a quick saute with those hallumy
salty flavors, and then pull your tarta tan out. The
trick with tartatans when as soon as you pull out
of the oven, put a plate on top of that
pan very carefully, everything it's very hot. Turn it over
instantly so that that sugar is still really hot and

(04:42):
will release those onions from the bottom of the pan.
And you should have a nice cup of a tarta
tar with the onion city inside. Lay your halumi over
the top of that, and then that beautiful sauteat asparagus,
and you might want to serve that with a little
bit of rocket and bobs your auntie. That's a delicious meal.
That could be. It could be a luncheon, a later luncheon.
It could be a starter, or it could be made

(05:03):
meal if you serve it with some pan fried chicken
or roast chicken or something those lines.

Speaker 2 (05:08):
I'm just feeling a bit pickagh to be honest with you, Mike.
Sounds delicious, thank you so much.

Speaker 1 (05:12):
For more from the Sunday Session with Francesca Rudkin, listen
live to News Talks it Be from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio