There were hot collars galore when Delia exposed her cheatin’ ways.
However where National Treasures are prepared to tread – Tomato Lover will follow.
On my list of cheat ingredients would be ready made Puff Pastry – ready rolled. You take it out of the box*, unroll it, like a anaemic carpet, and it’s ready to use. I used half the roll in Wednesday’s recipe and the other half for today’s.
Spread pesto over the rolled out pastry, stud with tomato halves, sprinkle with grated parmesan and put in a 200c ( fan) oven for 20 minutes.
I trialled 2 ways of preventing puff to pan stick, greasing the tin with butter and cutting a piece of baking parchment to stick under the pasty. Both worked but the first method meant the pastry was a bit greasy , the baking parchment gave a better result.
*( However in cheating – don’t get caught out like I did. On the box it says take the pastry out of the fridge 20 mins before use. I got distracted and so it was longer before I tried to unroll it 2nd time around. It had turned sticky and wouldn’t cooperate so in the end I had to squidge it all into a ball, get some flour, a rolling pin and roll it out. I’m sure there’s a lesson here, somewhere….)
