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Crusty cockle tart

Name: Crusty cockle tart
Prep time: 2 h 22 min
Cook time: 30 min
Total time: 2 h 52 min
Yield: 4 people
Cuisine: French
Ingredients: 1 kg cockles; 200 g puff or flaky pastry (pâte feuilletée); 200 ml liquid cream; 2 egg yolks; Chives

A small puff pastry tart case filled with cockles in a cream and egg-yolk sauce ("a la poulette" in French).

122 K 4.3/5 (23 reviews)527545

Duration

2 hours 55 min.

Difficulty

Easy

Last modified on: March 17^th 2013

Step by step recipe Ingredients Duration Nutritional facts Cost Comments

For 4 people, you will need:

1 1 kg cockles
2 200 g puff or flaky pastry (pâte feuilletée)
3 200 ml liquid cream
4 2 egg yolks
5 Chives (optional)
Total weight: 1,440 grams

Times for this recipe

Preparation

2 hours 25 min.

Cooking

30 min.

All in all

2 hours 55 min.

Preparation 2 hours 25 min.

Cooking 30 min.

When should you start or finish this recipe?

If you start now, at , you will finish around : ?.Change start time

To finish around 7pm, you'll need to have started before: .Change end time

Step by step recipe

Stage 1 - ⌛ 2 hours

Prepare the cockles and the cooking liquid left. This can be done well in advance, or the day before.

Stage 2 - ⌛ 10 min.

Preheat the oven to 220°C (430°F).

Roll out the pastry and line the tart moulds or tins. Fill with baking beans (or lentils) to prevent the pastry puffing up too much.

Stage 3 - ⌛ 15 min.

Bake the tart cases for around 15 minutes, watching for colouring.

Remove the baking beans and keep the cases hot in the residual oven heat (after turning off).

Stage 4 - ⌛ 10 min.

Pour 200 ml liquid cream into a pan and bring to the boil over medium heat. Add pepper but no salt.

Add around 5 tablespoonsful of the cockle cooking liquid and taste to check the seasoning. If necessary, add a little more of the cockle liquid.

Stage 5 - ⌛ 2 min.

Turn down the heat and add 2 egg yolks.

Stage 6 - ⌛ 5 min.

Beat to mix thoroughly and continue beating gently until the "à la poulette" (chick) sauce thickens.

Remove from the heat as soon as it is thick enough.

Stage 7 - ⌛ 5 min.

Tip in the cockles and stir round briefly to reheat them.

Heat the plates.

Stage 8 - ⌛ 5 min.

Place a tart case on each plate and fill with a spoonful or two of cockles in sauce.

You can also pour the sauce over whatever you are serving on the side, such as the rice shown here.

Serve immediately.

Remarks

Just before serving, you can add a few chopped chives to the sauce if you wish.

Tarts like this should be served immediately as the sauce will soon start to soften the pastry and make them less appealing.

And to drink?

A dry white wine, such as a "Gros-plant" from the Nantes region.

Keeping: A few minutes once filled.

Source: Home made.

Nutritional information

	Proteins	Carbohydrates	Fats	Calories	Energy
Per 100 g	11 g RDI=18 %	52 g RDI=20 %	54 g RDI=75 %	148 kcal RDI=7 %	622 kJ RDI=7 %
Per person	42 g RDI=65 %	189 g RDI=72 %	196 g RDI=269 %	534 kcal RDI=27 %	2,238 kJ RDI=27 %
Whole recipe	168 g RDI=259 %	758 g RDI=286 %	784 g RDI=1,075 %	2,138 kcal RDI=107 %	8,951 kJ RDI=107 %