Roasted Mediterranean Vegetable Pastry

If you’ve ever walked around a village square in Italy, Greece, the south of France, or any of the other wonderfully rustic countries that border the Med for that matter, you may have noticed just how many old people there are sitting around. The men in one group drinking chilled beer whilst remarking jovially about their respective other halves in a fashion far younger than their years would dictate, should they reside in the comparatively drearier and uptight climbs of Northern Europe. The women crowded under an olive tree at the other end of the square doing much the same.

Compared to the rather sad fate that befalls many of our elderly in England, the retirement home filled to the rafters with senile old biddies, the thieving carers, some of whom were exposed in the papers only this week by a geriatric spook and her hidden spyware, and of course the bone chilling weather that claims several lives each year, the lifestyle afforded to those in heaven’s Mediterranean waiting room is exactly the same as walking into a Bertolli olive oil advert, fantastic.

Sun along with diet plays a massive part in the elongation and quality of life for these children of the Med, and since over the weekend we had the former in abundance, the latter followed naturally.

(I added some baby corns as they were in the fridge, not strictly Meddish but tasty all the same).  

Ingredients: (Serves 4)

1 sheet puff pastry

1 carrot, chopped

1 red onion, chopped in half moons

8 babycorns

1 courgette, chopped

1 sweet red pepper, chopped

10 asparagus heads

3 cloves garlic, squashed but whole

Sprig rosemary

Sprig thyme

Bay leaf

1 tablespoon of sugar

1 egg, beaten

Extra virgin olive oil

Balsamic Glaze

Method:

1. Steam the carrots, babycorns and asparagus for 10 mins until tender, when they are done chuck them in a roasting dish along with the remaining chopped vegetables, garlic, thyme, rosemary and bay leaf, coat with a few healthy slugs of olive oil before putting into a preheated oven at 220°C for half an hour. Five minutes before the end take out the tray and sprinkle over the sugar and a drizzling of balsamic glaze, toss and return to the oven.

2. Whilst the Vegetables are roasting roll out the puff pastry and fold over 1cm on each side into the middle so it looks like a pastry picture frame, coat the pastry with the beaten egg using a brush and whack it in the oven for 10 minutes until its golden and risen. Pull it out and poke a little hole in the middle to let some of the air out, then take out the veg and randomly spoon it onto the pastry and cook it for another 5 minutes.

3. Serve it by itself of as an addition to another dish, the classic chicken in pancetta perhaps; it’s also great with cheese on top such as mozzarella or feta. Select your country and ingredients accordingly.