Week 5 - 2 for 1 Tartines!

My addiction to entrees and mini food got the better of me this week, when I served up two appetizers to a guest for dinner. However, the expectation was set early that a dish was being cooked for The Bronze Spoon, and that the need to cook a “bookmarked” dish would take precedence over logic or preference.

So I prepared two dishes for this week’s challenge, both from the Entrée section of The Silver Spoon. I made Pizzaiola and Avocado Tartines, found on pages 135 and 137 respectively.

The Pizzaiola Tartines, or Tartine alla Pizzaiola are essentially a combination of tomatoes, green olives, spring onions and parsley on a toasted bread. I removed the seeds from the tomatoes, sprinkled them with salt and left them to drain for 5 minutes before chopping up. The tomatoes were then simply mixed with the olives, spring onion and parsley, and drizzled with olive oil and seasoned with some S&P. The bread was cut into rounds and toasted, then spread with butter. Each round was then topped with the tomato mixture, with a slice of buffalo mozzarella placed on top. Some oregano and olive oil was then added to garnish the dish.

The Avocado Tartines, or Tartine all’Avocado was a bit of a group effort. Two avocados were chopped up and placed into a food processor with some cream cheese, half a lemon, more lemon juice, a dash of Worcestershire sauce and some chives. The crusts were removed from the bread, and then cut into squares. The avocado mixture was simply spread onto the bread, with half a cherry tomato placed on top. Some basil, S&P and olive oil was then added to garnish.

Both Tartines turned out to be very tasty, however silly it may have been to serve them in the first place. I made two serves of the Pizzaiola Tartines, and added more salt to the tomato mixture in the second batch. This gave it a better flavor and was tastier than the first round. With the Avocado Tartines, I would definitely toast the bread next time. The mixture was too heavy for the little squares, so toasting it would give it more stability! I would also pipe the avocado mixture onto the bread, purely for presentation.

This is me done for another week. Until next time…

S.