Seafood Tarts

I love making tarts. Its can be sweet tarts that glazed with cream, custard and colorful fruits or savory tarts. For savory tarts you can fill it up with just about anything. It can asparagus and peas in spring, to tomatoes and zucchini in summer, to pumpkin, leeks and potatoes in fall and in winter with shrimp, salmon, bacon and even scallops. Some of them are custardy, like a quiche and others are simple fillings held together with a bit of cheese or egg mixture.

I did these seafood tarts for our Christmas brunch. You can always used store bought short crust pastry if you don’t feel like doing it from scratch.

Pastry for the tarts:

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 sticks or 3/4 cup (12 tbsp) cold unsalted butter, cut into cubes
1 tsp of salt
6 tbsp ice water (more or less)

1. Pulse in a food processor the flour, butter, and salt just until the mixture resembles a coarse meal with some small (pea-size) butter lumps.
2. Drizzle 5 tbsp ice water evenly over the mixture. Pulse until incorporated. Squeeze a small handful of the dough, if it doesn’t hold together, add more ice water, 1/2 tbsp at a time, pulsing until combined. Do not overwork the dough, or the crust will be tough.
3. Turn the dough out onto a work surface. Gather the all dough together then divide it in half. Flatten each half into a disk. Wrap each disk in plastic wrap and chill until firm, at least 1 hour.

Ingredients for the filling :

2 cup of cooked shrimp – roughly chopped
1/2 cup of artificial crabstick – roughly chopped
1 stalk of celery – cut into tiny cubes
3 spring onions - finely chopped
1 egg
1/2 cup of low fat cream cheese
1/2 cup of light mayonnaise
1 tsp of chili powder
1/2 tsp of sugar
2 tbsp of lemon juice
Salt and pepper to taste

1. In a mixing bowl mix all the filling ingredients together until well combined. Set it aside.
2. Roll about the dough to about 1/8” and line the pastry into little tart moulds.
3. Fill it up with the filling and bake in a pre-heated 350 degree F for half an hour or until the crust is golden brown. Serve warm or at room temperature.