How to cook a really good vegetable Tarte Tatin.

Recipes and tips to open up a world of delicious savoury options from the classic dessert.

Fennel and shallot Tart

This week is all about savoury Tarte Tatin.

We’ll be covering:

Cabbage and Pancetta Tarte Tatin (recipe)

What Vegetables work well and what to pair them with.

Fennel, Orange and shallot Tarte Tatin (recipe)

Plus a few important tips

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Tarte Tatin is one of those brilliant dishes that’s both classic and a bit cheeky. A tart baked upside down, with the pastry on top and the filling underneath, then flipped out of the pan at the end. It sounds like it shouldn’t work but it does, beautifully.

The original story goes back to the late 1800s in France, where two sisters, Caroline and Stéphanie Tatin were running a country hotel. One of them, so the tale goes, forgot to line the tin with pastry and just chucked it on top of the apples instead. She baked it anyway, flipped it, and a legend was born. Butter, sugar, apples and pastry it’s pretty hard to go too far wrong.

The classic made with apples.

But as much as I love a sweet apple Tatin, I reckon the real fun starts when you take the same technique and steer it into savoury territory. This week, I’ve been playing with a couple of versions: one with cabbage and pancetta, and another with fennel and shallot, served with a bright, punchy salad to cut through the richness. Both work a treat as a starter or main with a glass of something crisp.

Cabbage and pancetta Tart tatin.

Store bought puff is totally fine here, I use it all the time. I actually made the fennel shallot/fennel version with a little left over pizza dough with butter folded into it.

The key is to caramelise your veg properly, keep the seasoning punchy. When it comes to flipping the tart, I let it rest for a couple of minutes, then heat on the stove to melt the caramel, deep breath, plate on top, flip. Obviously take a little care, flip onto plate bigger than the pan to prevent caramel from spilling where it shouldn’t!

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Fennel & Shallot Tarte Tatin with Orange, Rocket & Feta Salad

I like to cook the fennel separately as it requires a little more cooking than the shallots. I love it really caramelised sticky and sweet.

Ingredients

1 large fennel bulb (sliced)

1 XL banana shallots (peeled and sliced into rounds)

3 tbsp butter

2 tbsp olive oil

3 tbsp honey

1 tbsp apple cider vinegar

Juice of half an orange(and a little zest)

1 tsp chopped rosemary

1 tsp soy

1 sheet puff pastry (or rolled out pizza dough like I did!)

Salt and pepper

Salad

Juice from the rest of the orange( and a little zest)

50g feta, crumbled

A handful of rocket

A handful of picked mint and parsley

Olive oil

Salt and pepper