Photograph: Ola O Smit/The Guardian. Food styling: Iona Blackshaw. Prop styling: Rachel Vere. Food styling assistant: El Kemp. Simple but pleasing weeknight meals start here: a ready-rolled, herby pea and cheese tart and 30-minute sweetcorn fritters with avocado, halloumi and hot honey See Rukmini’s five top kitchen rules Pea, […]
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Simple but pleasing weeknight meals start here: a ready-rolled, herby pea and cheese tart and 30-minute sweetcorn fritters with avocado, halloumi and hot honey
Pea, tarragon and cream cheese tart
This is nice enough to make when friends come over, and also easy enough for a quick weeknight dinner. Just unroll the puff pastry, top with a mixture of quickly cooked frozen peas, eggs and creme fraiche, scatter over some cheese, and voilà! An easy, quiche-adjacent dinner. I love the background complexity that fresh tarragon brings to this dish, but if you don’t have any, or aren’t keen on its aniseedy flavour, just let the Boursin do the herby heavy lifting.
Prep 10 min
Cook 30 min
Serves 4
250g frozen peas, defrosted
2 sprigs tarragon, leaves picked and finely chopped (optional)
4 eggs
100g full-fat creme fraiche
Zest of 1 lemon, plus the juice of ½ lemon
Flaky sea salt
1 x 400g pack ready-rolled puff pastry
150g garlic and herb cheese – Boursin or similar
Heat the oven to 200C (180C fan)/390F/gas 6. Cook the peas in a pan of boiling water for two minutes, then drain, and rinse and refresh under the cold tap.
Meanwhile, whisk the tarragon, eggs, creme fraiche and lemon zest in a bowl, add half a teaspoon of sea salt, then stir through the drained, cooled peas.
Unroll the pastry into a medium roasting tin, just small enough (roughly 26cm x 21cm) that the edges of the pastry come up the sides to form a lip. Pour in the pea and creme fraiche mixture, crumble the cheese evenly over the top, then bake for 25 minutes, until the pastry is crisp and golden brown.
Scatter over some sea salt flakes and a squeeze of lemon juice, then serve hot or at room temperature.
Sweetcorn fritters with avocado, halloumi and hot honey
I enjoy the brunch-for-dinner vibes of this dish, but it’s easy enough to make on a weeknight after work, and it’s a winner with children, too. My top timesaving tips: slice the avocado and halloumi while you’re frying the fritters, and use a second pan to cook the halloumi – this is delicious enough that your resident washing-up volunteer (!) won’t mind the additional pan.
Prep 10 min
Cook 25 min
Serves 2 adults and 2 children
300g frozen sweetcorn, defrosted (or drained canned corn)
150g self-raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp smoked paprika
1 tsp sea salt flakes
2 eggs
100ml milk
2 avocados, peeled, stoned and sliced
Juice of 1 lime
Olive oil, for frying
225-250g halloumi, cut into ½cm-thick slices
6 tbsp honey
1 tsp chipotle chilli flakes
Greek yoghurt, to serve
Mix the corn, flour, baking powder, paprika and salt in a large bowl. In a small jug, whisk the eggs and milk, then stir into the sweetcorn mixture to make a thick batter. Dress the sliced avocado with the lime juice.
Turn on the oven to very low – 70C (50C fan)/gas very low. Put half a tablespoon of oil in a large, heavy-based frying pan on a medium heat, then, when it’s hot, drop in heaped tablespoons of the batter – you want about one and a half tablespoons of batter per fritter – keeping them reasonably well spaced apart. Fry for two minutes on each side, adjusting the temperature as needed, so they don’t cook too quickly. Transfer to a shallow roasting tin lined with kitchen paper, then put in the warm oven and repeat with the rest of the batter, using half a tablespoon of oil per batch.
For speed, use a second dry pan or griddle pan to fry the halloumi on a medium heat for 90 seconds on each side, until golden brown.
Once all the fritters are cooked and in the oven, add the honey and chipotle flakes to the hot pan and heat for a minute or two, until bubbling. Drizzle the hot honey over the fritters and serve at once with the halloumi, avocado and yoghurt on the side.
Rukmini Iyer is the bestselling author of the Roasting Tin series.
