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Savoury mince and tahini tart

Main Picnic
Serves 6-8
Prep 30 min
Cook 1 hr 30 min

This is not your usual meat pie. It is rich, sweet and spicy, and looks impressive yet rustic when served whole at the table. Take it on a picnic or serve warm with a salad of mixed bitter leaves.

Ingredients

160ml olive oil
500g shop bought shortcrust pastry
70g pine nuts
2 onions, halved and thinly sliced
400g minced beef, 5% fat
400g pork sausage meat
3 tbsp tomato purée
2 tsp sugar
2 tsp smoked paprika
1 tbsp dried mint
2 tsp ground allspice (pimento)
1 tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp ground nutmeg
½ tsp cayenne pepper or dried chilli flakes
400g spinach leaves
100g greek yoghurt
100g tahini
1 egg
1 lemon, juiced to get 2 tbsp
2 tbsp parsley, chopped
fine sea salt
black pepper

Method

  1. Lightly oil a 24cm shallow loose-bottomed cake tin with a teaspoon of olive oil. Roll out the pastry 2-3mm thick and line the base neatly, allowing the pastry to spill over the edge by at least 2cm. This excess will be trimmed later. Score the base with a fork in a few places. Rest the tart case in the fridge for at least half an hour.
  2. Heat the oven to 170ºC. Cut a circle of greaseproof paper greater in diameter than the base plus the sides of the tart case. Tuck it inside the tart case and fill up with dried beans or rice. Bake the case blind for 35 minutes, take the beans out (keep for similar use in the future) and cook for about 8 more minutes until lightly golden. Remove from the oven and leave to cool. Alongside the baking case you can also toast the pine nuts. Scatter them on a separate tray and leave in the oven for 8 minutes or until they go golden. Set aside.
  3. To make the filling, heat up 60 millilitres olive oil in a large heavy saucepan. Fry the onions until golden brown, about 10 minutes. Remove from the heat and set aside in a heat proof bowl. Return the pan to the heat, add 60 millilitres olive oil, add the beef, break it down with a fork and cook it on a high flame for 2 minutes to get some colour. Add the sausage meat, mix well with your fork, and keep on cooking on medium heat for 10 minutes or until golden. Stir in the tomato purée and sugar and cook for another 3 minutes. Add 1 teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon black pepper, 1 teaspoon of the smoked paprika, and all the rest of the spices. Mix well, then add spinach and 50 millilitres water. Now cook on a low heat for 10 minutes, until the spinach has completely wilted and the mixture is juicy but not too wet. Remove from the heat and mix through the browned onions and 50 grams of pine nuts.
  4. For the tahini mix, whisk together the yoghurt, tahini, egg, 1 tablespoon lemon juice, and ¼ tsp salt. Set aside.
  5. For the pine nut oil, mix together the remaining 40 millilitres olive oil, 1 teaspoon smoked paprika, and the remaining pine nuts. Set aside.
  6. Heat the oven to 190ºC. To assemble the tart, spoon all of the meat mixture into the pastry case. Using the back of a spoon, create 5 indents across the surface of the meat mix, then spoon the tahini mix into them. Put the pie in the oven for about 15 minutes or until the tahini mix is set.
  7. Once ready, remove from the oven, trim off the excess pastry using a small serrated knife and take the pie out of its tin. Sprinkle over 1 tablespoon lemon juice, the chopped parsley, and the pine nut oil. Serve hot or warm.