Non-Goat's Cheese and Non-Red Onion Tartlets

The story behind these is that I wanted to make goat's cheese and red onion tartlets, but the local shop didn't have red onions or goat's cheese. I improvised with what they did have, having a thought about the flavours, and the result was very nice. Nice enough to reproduce deliberately.

Ingredients:

• 100g Wensleydale cheese, finely crumbled


• 150g cream cheese


• 1 tsp dried oregano


• 1 tsp dried thyme


• 1 onion, diced


• 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar


• 2 tbsp caster sugar


• 1 tsp red food dye


• 1 sheet of pre-rolled puff pastry

Method:

1. Pre heat the oven to 200 degrees


2. Mix the two cheese, oregano and thyme in a bowl and season liberally with black pepper. Make sure the Wenselydale is really well broken up and mixed with the cream cheese so that it looks very much like soft goat's cheese.


3. Grease 6 ramekins if you have them, if you don't then you can just make open tartlets, so don't worry.


4. Put the onion, vinegar, sugar and food dye in a pan and fry gently for 10 minutes. The mixture should have almost no liquid and be starting to caramelise (go crispy/burnt), but don't go too far and burn it!


5. Roll out the puff pastry and cut out 6 large circles, a cm or two larger than the ramekins and 6 smaller circles which just fit the ramekins tops. If you're not using ramekins then just divide the pastry into 6 circles (or squares, or whatever shape you want) and use thin strips of pastry to add a raised edge to the pastry shapes.


6. Divide the onion mixture between the ramekins/pastry shapes


7. Divide the "goat's cheese" mixture between the ramekins/pastry shapes.


8. If using ramekins then place the smaller circles on the top and press the pasty together to get a seal between the lid and the pastry already in the ramekin.


9. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, or until the pastry is a nice golden brown.

Serves 3 to 4.