Recipes from your veg box: The Brixton Broccoli Tarte

Local Greens, one of the founder Better Food Traders, has partnered with Healthy Living Platform, a Brixton organization that empowers local people to choose healthy and sustainable lifestyles by giving practical training, education, information and support on topics such as nutrition, cooking, food growing, health and wellbeing. 

Each week, Local Greens’ surplus veg goes to the Platform to go into the free vegetarian meals it supplies to people in the local community who might be struggling. To celebrate Local Green’s 10th birthday, Platform chefs Malika Maza and Alison Mcnaught, crafted this dish. It is inspired by the sunny day on which they were working together and had lots of broccoli, greens and potatoes to use. 

This is an English summer dish with a French twist, as both chefs have a background of cooking in France. They wanted to show off the simplicity of the ingredients and felt this dish would be easy to execute on a budget, while also impressing friends and family.

Serves 6

Cook Time 40 min

Ingredients

3 medium potatoes 

1 medium broccoli head, cut into florets (or approximately 500g of Tenderstem broccoli)

3 garlic gloves, crushed

1 onion, diced

3 tablespoons olive oil 

1 teaspoon corn flour 

100 millilitres dairy or plant based milk

50 grams cheddar cheese or dairy-free option

A few sprigs fresh thyme or 1 teaspoon dried thyme 

2 bay leaves

Salt and pepper to taste
 

Method

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180C. 

2. Spread 1 tbsp of olive oil over a 20cm tart or quiche tin. 

3. Slice the potatoes as thinly as possible - approximately 1 cm thick. Use a mandoline slicer, if you have one, to make uniform slices

4. Cover the tart base with the potato slices and bake for 10 minutes until slightly golden.

5. Bring 1 litre of water to the boil. Once boiling, add the broccoli, 1 bay leaf and a pinch of salt. Cook for 3 minutes and then drain. 

6. In a pan, heat the rest of the olive oil over a medium heat. Add the onion, 2nd bay leaf and thyme and cook for approximately 10 minutes until slightly golden.

7. Stir through the crushed garlic and broccoli pieces. Remove from the heat.

8.  Mix the corn flour with the milk and pour into the broccoli mixture. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

9. Pour the broccoli mixture over the potato slices, sprinkle the grated cheese on top and bake in the oven for 10 minutes. 

Voilà!

Local Greens provide fresh veg and fruit grown using ethical and environmental principals from small UK farms every Thursday. Find out more and how you can get a box here and @localgreensveg on social.

Learn more about Healthy Living Platform here.

Check out last month’s Better Food Traders recipe from Cambridge Organic – No Faff Pilaff