chili pesto, mushroom, roasted red pepper and halloumi tarts with homemade puff pastry

Last Saturday Rich and I took the train up to Riverhead on Long Island to visit Filippo Berio at the Rose and Bubbly festival. It was an amazing wee day out (I always forget how much I love getting out of the city), and we had an amazing time tasting all of the pestos, right in the middle of a beautiful vineyard! Guests were able to try the pestos, along with taking the Filippo Berio Pestonality quiz, which will be available very soon on their website! I popped a few of my fave photos from the day at the bottom of this post.

Back to these wee tarts! I wanted to come up with something to incorporate the Hot Chili version of the pesto, and these tarts do just that! I started with some homemade puff pastry, which, if you are up for it, is a super fun wee project, and actually not as hard as most people think. If you like, you can absolutely use store bought puff here too. I then rolled it out, cut it into rectangles, then spread with a thin layer of hot chili pesto, before topping it with a mushroom and garlic mixture, and some roasted red pepper strips. Once baked, it was topped with some fried halloumi cubes, and finished with a wee sprig of thyme.

Puff Pastry Recipe from The Fearless Baker

Puff Pastry
Butter Block
453g (1 lb) unsalted butter, at room temperature
71g (2/3 cup) Bread Flour

Dough

397 (3 3/13 cups) bread flour
198g (1 2/3 cups) All-purpose flour
6g (1 1/2 tsp) fine sea salt
113g (8 Tbsp) unsalted butter, at room temperature
287g (1 cup plus 3 Tbsp) cool water

Tart Filling

4 large red bell peppers
1 small onion, finely diced
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
300g button mushrooms, finely chopped
1 jar Filippo Berio Hot Chili Pesto
1 tsp fresh thyme leaves

- PROCESS -

PUFF PASTRY

To make the butter block, combine the butter and bread flour and mix until well combined. On a 13" x 18" piece of parchment paper, spread the butter into a 6" x 9" rectangle that is approximately 1/2" thick, using an offset spatula to square off the edges. Fold the remaining parchment paper down, using a bench scraper to square off the edges again (very square butter is very helpful!). Place in the fridge for 20-30 minutes, until it is between 60˚f and 70˚f (15˚c to 20˚c).
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full process : www.cloudykitchen.com