For your holiday table, or likely tables, here’s a dish that can be an appetizer or a side or even — on a meatless night when you take a break from heavier food — a delightful main dish. From the new Fermented by Charlotte Pike, this dish uses labneh, an enriched form of yogurt you can make overnight in your kitchen.
The recipe in the book calls for just ¼ cup of labneh to be spread over the puff pastry and I personally suspect that you’ll want more, so I’ve increased the amount below to a full ½ cup. You may want even more.
In terms of that puff pastry, you have two choices. The hard one, yet very noble on your part, would be to make your own. The likely path for most of us is to buy puff pastry. If you are doing that, go high end. DuFour is the brand we like. You want puff pastry made from real butter, not some oil-based faux pastry that will just not be the same.
As the preparation suggests below, the best way to enjoy this dish is hot out of the oven. But, a very close second is as a leftover the next day, cold or warmed.
White wine, of course!
Zucchini, Labneh, and Thyme Tart
Yield: serves 4-6
Ingredients:
- 1 x 13 ounce pack of ready-made, ready-rolled puff pastry
- ½ cup, or more, Savory Labneh [recipe follows]
- 1 tablespoon milk or egg, beaten
- 2 large or 6 baby zucchini, ends trimmed and sliced at an angle, approximately 2 inches thick
- 3 tablespoons Parmesan, finely grated
- 1 tablespoon thyme leaves
- Sea salt and black pepper
Preparation:
Preheat the oven to 350°F.
Unroll the puff pastry onto a large baking sheet. Take a sharp knife and cut a border around the edge of the pastry, running roughly 1 inch parallel to the sides.
Spread the labneh over the middle of the pastry, taking it up to, but not over, the pastry border. Brush the border with a little milk or beaten egg and season the labneh all over with salt and pepper.
Now, arrange the zucchini slices over the labneh, ensuring the labneh is covered. Sprinkle the Parmesan evenly over the surface and scatter over some thyme leaves.
Bake for 18-22 minutes, by which time the border should have puffed up nicely and the topping will be golden brown. Serve immediately while hot, or it is good cold the following day.
Savory Labneh
Yield: 1 ½ pounds
Ingredients:
- One 2 pound tub of organic whole milk or Greek or yogurt
- 1 tablespoon sea salt
- Cheesecloth
Preparation:
Place the yogurt in a mixing bowl and beat in the salt.
Set a sieve over a large mixing bowl. Drape a large cheesecloth over the surface, so that the base of the sieve is fully lined and the sides of the cheesecloth hang down over the sides of the bowl.
Spoon the yogurt into the center of the cheesecloth, gather up the sides and tie them tightly with string just above the yogurt. Leave the lengthy string long to tie it up.
Suspend the cheesecloth bag over the mixing bowl by tying it in a position where it can hang and the whey can drip into the bowl. I do this at home by tying the cheesecloth bag onto a cupboard handle over the countertop. Some people like to tie it to a faucet and sit the bowl in the sink below Set aside in a cool place overnight, during which time the whey will drip through the cheesecloth.
The contents of the cheesecloth bag is your labneh. In the morning, pour the labneh into a clean earthenware or glass bowl, cover with plastic wrap and set aside in the fridge until needed. (It is helpful to weigh how much labneh you have made at this point so that you can make up any recipe accordingly.)
The labneh will keep well in the fridge for up to 3 days.
Source: Fermented by Charlotte Pike [Kyle, 2015]