July 2013 - Chocolate Chilli Tart

I am not going to pfaff about with what is on the inside of the front cover. There are other things to make, and I may get to those later, but to start with I just could not go past the cover recipe. I have often lamented about the glorious cover recipes with desserts on the front and wanting to make them but no one to cook for. It hasn't changed but this time around I didn't care I decided that I would just make it. I have frozen a few slices to see if that will work. I have some to go to the office and finally some to go to a friend. Although, my friend isn't keen on chilli so I am not sure how she is going to go I guess her hubby will get it all if it is too strong for her. I will suggest freezing if it has too much of a kick for her. I had thought about reducing the amount of chilli in the recipe but I really wanted to make it as it. 

Talking about that, I didn't make it completely according to the recipe as I didn't make the chilli syrup to drizzle over it. Well, that is not exactly true. I did try to make the syrup but something went horribly wrong. I wasn't really sure what it was initially. I had a jar of glucose syrup in the cupboard, which I admit, had been there a while. After I ended up with a weird lumpy mess I had a look at the jar and it was use by 1996! I knew it had been around a while but not quite that long. After tasting the tart I don't think that the syrup was really necessary anyway.

I made this recipe over two days starting with the dulce de leche ice cream that goes with this and finishing with the tart. It wasn't difficult it was just a bit time consuming. I made everything from scratch, so it added a bit to the time. I will post the ice cream recipe in a different post.

I will start out with my recipe for the dark chocolate pastry I used. I cannot get the recommended Careme pastry so I made my own.

Dark Chocolate pastry

1 1/4 c flour

1/3 c dark cocoa (I used Plaistowe from the supermarket)

1/4 c caster sugar

125 g cold butter, chopped

1 egg

1 tsp vinegar

1 - 2 tbsp water

Add flour, cocoa and sugar to Thermomix bowl (or food processor) mix 5 sec on sp 4.

Add butter 10 sec on sp 4 or until it resembles breadcrumbs.

Whisk together egg, vinegar and 1 tbsp water. Add to flour mixture, knead closed lid position for 30 sec, checking to see if further liquid required. I did add the extra 1 tbsp water.

Wrap in plastic, set aside. If hot place in fridge, if cold on the counter will be fine.

Line 23cm tart tin, place in freezer for 10 min. Remove and fill with baking paper and pie weights (or rice) and bake for 10 minutes at 180 C, then remove weights and bake for a further 10 minutes. 

Chocolate Chilli Tart

adapted from Valli Little

300 ml thickened cream

150 ml pure cream 

2 tbsp caster sugar

200 g dark chocolate, finely chopped

100 g milk chocolate, finely chopped 

Seeds of 10 cardamom pods, ground

1/2 tsp chilli powder

3 eggs, lightly beaten

Bring creams & sugar to a simmer then remove from heat and add chocolate, cardamom & chilli and stir until smooth. Cool a bit and then add eggs. Pour into tart case and bake for 20 -25 min. Cool in pan. 

I had enough chocolate custard for two ramekins and baked them too. The hit of chilli seemed stronger in them than the tart. 

Beetroot Tarte Tatin

Beetroot again, I have told you numerous times how much I love beetroot. I have only made a few tarte tatins before but each time they have been very good. I ended up using extra beetroot and a larger frying pan than the recipe called for but didn't increase the glaze/sauce ingredients. It will worked well but I think it would have been better if I had increased those ingredients as well. I loved the combination of sweet with the earthiness of beetroot is just an amazing combination. Served with a very basic salad it was a fantastic vegetarian meal. 

Beetroot Tarte Tatin

15g butter
8 small beetroot, peeled, halved
1 tbs brown sugar
1 tbs balsamic vinegar
1 tsp fresh thyme leaves
1 sheet frozen butter puff pastry, thawed
50g goat's cheese, crumbled (I used feta)
 

Preheat oven to 200C. Melt butter in a ovenproof non-stick 19cm (base measurement) frying pan over medium-high heat. Stir in the beetroot for 2 minutes. Add the sugar, vinegar and thyme. Season. Cook, stirring, for 2 minutes or until mixture thickens. Cover with foil and bake for 20 minutes or until beetroot is just tender. Set aside for 5 minutes to cool. Increase oven to 220C.

Trim pastry into a 24cm disc. Arrange beetroot evenly over base of pan. Top with pastry. Fold in excess. Bake for 20 minutes or until puffed and golden. Cool in the pan for 10 minutes. Turn onto a plate. Top with goat's cheese.

Pesto roasted tomato tart

So, I have a new subscription. This time to Australian Good Taste. I decided that, like delicious. magazine, I have to use it. There is no point getting the magazine if I don't use it. The best way for me to use it is to post on here that I will be cooking from it every month. See, now I am obligated, it is on the internet, it must be true. ;) 

I didn't get past the cover recipe for something I wanted to make make. Actually that isn't exactly true even if it is on the cover and is the first recipe inside. There are all sorts of things that I want to make but went with the cover recipe to start with. 

As for other things to make, I am not sure I will get them in this month. Although there is still plenty of time. However I also purchased a copy of New Zealand's Dish magazine with some amazing looking recipes. Also this month's delicious. magazine is excellent. I have done so much cooking this month but have been very lazy in regard to blogging about them. Oops, I shouldn't have admitted that, now it is out there I will have to write them won't I. 

Back to the March edition of Australian Good Taste magazine. The glazed pear & goat's cheese salad sounds really good, although it would be feta for me. I have tried hard to like goat's cheese but it is just not for me. I am happy to add feta to salads instead. I am definitely going to make the chorizo, corn & chilli streusel muffins. I can see them being the perfect accompaniment for soup, so it might be a recipe that will have to wait. Although I am sure they would be excellent brunch item too. Tobie Puttock's pesce al cartoccio looks fantastic. It is a fish dish that looks really good to me with a combination of fennel, olives and capers. As far as I am concerned anything with olives and capers is terrific. Plus with most fish dishes it is easy to reduce recipes to one serve. 

The pesto roasted tomato tart was good, although it certainly needed some seasoning. For me it was definitely missing pepper in the mix. I think that I would add more garlic and more pesto next time too. I really liked the parmesan & oregano pastry. It was wonderfully short and crumbly. I got it a bit too thick on the corners. I should probably have been rolled thinner. In fact I think that there could have been a bit less pastry. Perhaps there was a lot of pastry trimmed when they made the tart for the magazine. Overall, it was good but I think it would be great with a few tweaks. It was good cold as well as hot too. Oh, and it gave me a chance to try making pastry in my thermomix. It was so easy and an easier clean up than making it in my food processor. 

Pesto roasted tomato tart

2 tsp olive oil 

1 leek, thinly sliced 

1 garlic clove, thinly slice 

150 g fresh ricotta

50 g goat's cheese (I used feta)

1 tbsp basil pesto

10 mixed baby tomatoes 

2 truss tomatoes, thickly sliced

6 pitted kalamata olives, halved

Fresh oregano leaves, to serve 

Parmesan & oregano pastry

225 g plain flour

150 g butter, chilled & chopped 

20 g (1/4 c) shredded parmesan

3 tsp chopped fresh oregano (I probably used about a tbsp)

1 egg yolk

2 tbsp chilled water

For pastry: 

Add flour, butter, parmesan and oregano to tmx bowl and hit turbo until mix resembles breadcrumbs. 

Add egg yolk and water and mix for 5 - 10 seconds at speed 6 or until mix comes together in a ball. Turn out, shape into a disc, cover with plastic wrap and chill in fridge. 

Cook leek & garlic in oil over a medium heat until soft. Cool. 

Combine ricotta, goat's cheese and pesto. 

Pre-heat oven to 200 C. 

Roll pastry out to a 25 x 35 cm rectangle. (mine was a bit thick so would go on thickness rather than size). 

Spread with ricotta, then leeks and finally tomatoes and olives. 

Fold in the edges of the pastry and bake for 30 min or until golden and tomato soft. 

Greek Pumpkin and Rice Tart

I like to keep the 90 second rice packets in my cupboard. I know rice is easy to cook and is relatively quick to cook also but some times I just don't feel up to making too much and having these in the cupboard really helps me to still eat well on days like those. There are also a couple of "slices" or tarts that I have made that use them. I think with all of the recipes you could easily use rice that had been cooked and cooled. I really enjoyed this dish. The original recipe uses prosciutto but I ended up using bacon instead. It was a little bit salty but not too bad. This would depend on your bacon and feta though. It was very good hot but I enjoyed it even more when it was cold. 

Greek Pumpkin and Rice Tart 

6 slices bacon

6 spring onions

1 bunch dill

250g packet 90 sec rice, I used jasmine 

8 eggs

100g feta

4 - 6 baby bocconcini, halved

1/2 (about 1kg) butternut pumpkin

60ml (1/4 cup) extra virgin olive oil

200g cherry tomatoes

1 lemon

Preheat oven to 180C. Grease a 26cm, heavy-based, ovenproof frying pan. Place bacon slices, over base and side of pan, trimming to fit if necessary.

Peel pumpkin then cut into 7mm cubes and toss with 1 tbs oil. Then place on a tray and roast in the oven for 12 - 15 minutes or until just soft. Set aside to cool slightly

Roughly chop white and most of green part of onions, then roughly chop with all but thick stems of dill. Place half each of the onions and dill in a large bowl. Reserve remainder. Add rice and eggs to onion mixture, then crumble over feta. Using a whisk or fork, whisk to combine. Season with salt and pepper. Pour egg mixture into lined pan, then cook over medium heat for 5 minutes.

Scatter pumpkin mixture over egg mixture, top with halved bocconcini. Transfer pan to the top shelf of the oven and cook for 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, to make tomato salad, roughly chop tomatoes and place in a bowl with reserved onions and dill. Squeeze over juice from lemon, add remaining 2 tbs oil, then season. Gently toss to combine.

Turn oven to the grill setting and cook tart for a further 5 minutes or until egg is set and pumpkin and feta are golden.

Serve tart with tomato salad.

Paradise Pear, Pancetta & Camembert Tart

Wow, is it February already? Hard to believe really. I haven't been all that well over the past couple of weeks so they have seemed to kind of disappear. Hopefully things will improve though. 

I haven't been doing a lot of cooking but I did make these lovely little tarts a while ago. While shopping the one day I saw a package of Paradise Pears. These are tiny little pears. I remembered seeing them in stores last year too but hadn't bought them. So I decided that I would get some and experiment. I decided to use some in a savoury dish. I came across this recipe on Taste and adapted it to how I wanted them to be. I served it with a lovely little side salad. It was a perfect result, if I do say so myself. The sweetness from the caramelised onion & pears combined perfectly with the salty pancetta and silky custard. Camembert was just the icing on the cake.

Paradise Pear, Pancetta & Camembert Tart

Pastry:

1 1/2 cups plain flour
125 g butter, cubed
1/2 tsp salt
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 tbsp white vinegar
water to make up 1/2 c with egg & vinegar

Combine flour & salt, cut in butter. Combine egg & vinegar and add water. Add slowly to flour & butter mixture until you get a soft pastry. (You probably wont need all the liquid) Wrap in glad wrap and refrigerate for 20 minutes.
Roll out and line 10 cm individual tart pans. Place tart pans on a baking tray and chill in freezer for 20 minutes.
Pre-heat oven to 180 C.
Line pastry shells with baking paper and fill with pie weights/beans/rice and bake for 15 minutes. Remove baking paper and weights and return to oven for a further 10 - 15 minutes or until slightly golden.

For filling: 

3 Paradise pears 

30 g butter

2 tsp brown sugar 

2 tbsp caramelised onions

4 very thin slices pancetta

150 g camembert

2 eggs 

1/2 c milk

salt & pepper, to taste

Halve and core pears. Heat half the butter in a pan over a medium heat until foamy. Add 3 pear halves and cook until golden. Sprinkle with half the sugar and cook, turning occasionally, until caramelised. Transfer to a plate. Repeat with the remaining butter, and the remaining pears and sugar. 

Wipe out fry pan and increase heat to medium high. Add pancetta slices and cook until crispy. Remove to a plate lined with paper to drain, and then crumble. 

Place a small amount of caramelised onions in the bottom of each tart shell, top with some crumbled pancetta, two pear halves and some chunks of camembert. 

Lightly beat eggs in a measuring jug, add milk and salt & pepper and whisk to combine then pour into tart tins. 

Bake at 180 C (fan forced) for 18 - 20 minutes or until set and golden. 

Beet, Feta & Almond Tart

I made this last Sunday night for dinner. I served it with a very easy Nectarine & Rocket salad. It was very good hot but quite rich. It was also very good cold for lunches during the week. In fact it may have been better cold than hot. The only thing I would change would be to use milk instead of the cream. That is definitely a personal taste thing though as I found it to be way too rich for me. I would also put a little bit less beet in next time too, although I had used 2 1/2 beets so when writing out the recipe I said to use 2. If you don't want to make your own pastry then you can just use some premade shortcrust pastry. This is my Gramma's pastry recipe and it is so easy to make. My Gramma used to make it with her own rendered lard, which of course, made an incredible pastry but butter works just as well.

Beet, Feta & Almond Tart

Pastry:

1 1/2 cups plain flour
125 g butter, cubed
1/2 tsp salt
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 tbsp white vinegar
water to make up 1/2 c with egg & vinegar

Combine flour & salt, cut in butter. Combine egg & vinegar and add water. Add slowly to flour & butter mixture until you get a soft pastry. (You probably wont need all the liquid) Wrap in glad wrap and refrigerate for 20 minutes.
Roll out and line tart pan. Chill in freezer for 20 minutes.
Pre-heat oven to 180 C.
Line pastry shell with baking paper and fill with pie weights/beans/rice and bake for 15 minutes. Remove baking paper and weights and return to oven for a further 10 - 15 minutes or until slightly golden.

For filling:

2 medium beets, roasted until tender, cooled and chopped
2 or 3 spoons of caramelised onions (I had some in the freezer, if cooking probably about 1/2 a red onion slice & cooked)
about 100 g marinated feta (I just used as much as I wanted)
1/4 parmesan, finely grated
3 eggs, lightly beaten
185 ml (3/4 c) cream, (I would probably use 150 ml milk next time it was a bit rich for me)
1 - 2 tbsp sliced almonds

Combine beets and onions and put into tart shell. Top with crumbled feta and half the parmesan.
Combine eggs & cream and pour into tart shell.
Place tart pan on a baking tray and bake at 180 C for 20 minutes.
Top with remaining parmesan and almonds and return to oven for a further 15 minutes or until set and golden.

November 2011 - Happy Birthday Delicious magazine

Happy birthday to delicious. magazine. Imagine 10 years old now. It is almost hard to believe that it has been going for that long however as I sit here and look over at the shelf in my bookshelf full of magazine is a clear indication that it is true. It is a truly amazing collection of recipes and articles on a wonderful wide range of cuisines and topics. 

What else but a fabulous dessert could be made from this issue? There was some lovely looking savoury recipes like Bill Granger's Coriander & Maple Syrup Lamb Racks, Rick Stein's BBQ butterflied lamb with olive oil chips and tomato, eschalot & basil salad or John Wilson's Chicken Kiev Burgers. While all of these sounded very good, especially Bill's recipe. I really wanted to make a sweet recipe. 

Something else that was necessary, whatever recipe I made it had to be one of Valli Little's recipes. So much of what I have made out of delicious. magazine has come from Valli Little. Almost all of her recipes have been a success for me. I can't think of any off the top of my head that I would call a failure only things that I would tweak for my own tastes. It just seemed right that whatever I made from this birthday issue would be something of Valli's. 

Having said that, I did for a very short amount of time consider making Christopher The's amazing Mango Meringue Birthday Cake on the front cover. I really would love to make it one day. The recipe is long and involved and I would need to buy another two 20cm round springform pans, although I suppose I could halve the recipe. It is certainly not something that you can just whip up in a few hours. One day I will make it, although I have been saying that about Adriano Zumbo's V8 cake for two years now too. 

I had my grandparents and great-uncle & his partner coming up for dinner at slightly short notice and needed a dessert for the meal. I decided it was the perfect opportunity to make something from this issue. I decided on Valli's Strawberry & Rhubarb Galette. It was very easy and quite quick to make but it gave a stunning result. Everyone was very impressed with it. My grandmother particularly loved the pastry. I only made one change from the recipe  and that was to use yoghurt in the pastry instead of sour cream. The yoghurt reduces the richness of the pastry a bit. The rose cream that was served with it was very good too, although I reduced the amount of rose water worried that it would be overpowering but I really shouldn't have full strength would have been better I think. It was such a wonderful dessert with really good flavour. I would definitely make this one again. 

June 2010 - Creamy Onion Tart in Walnut Pastry

On to the final issue for June. I cannot believe how quickly this month has passed. In fact it is hard to believe that I am half way through my back issues. I have discovered some wonderful recipes, and not just the ones that I have actually made and posted but all the others that I have marked to make as well. I really hope that I will go back more often and look through the back issues for some thing to make.

I have to admit that besides Valli Little's Spanish Pear Tarts with Pedro Ximenez syrup on the cover I didn't really consider any other recipe than the one I made from issue #94. I am sure there are plenty of good recipes in there and flicking through some things do look quite good. However Debbie Major's Creamy Onion Tart in Walnut Pastry caught my eyes and after that I wasn't interested in anything else. This was a great recipe and super easy to make. The pastry was a bit salty, I wouldn't add the salt when making it next time. The filling was fairly rich given all the cream and eggs in it but it was definitely worth it. I had it for dinner but I think that it would make a wonderful lunch.

Creamy Onion Tart in Walnut Pastry

Serves 6

Ingredients:

• 30 g unsalted butter
  
• 4 large onions (about 450 g total), thinly sliced
• 2 tbsp chopped flat-leaf parsley
• 3 large eggs
• 300 ml thickened cream (I used pure cream)
  
• 1/4 tsp freshly grated nutmeg

Walnut pastry

• 175 g plain flour
• 1/2 cup (50 g) toasted walnuts
  
• 100 g chilled unsalted butter, chopped

Method:

• For the pastry: place flour, walnuts and 1/2 tsp salt in a food processor and blend until nuts are finely chopped.
  
• Add butter and process until mixture resembles breadcrumbs.
  
• Add 1 1/2 tbsp cold water and process until mixture comes together in a ball.
  
• Wrap dough in plastic and chill for 15 minutes.
  
• Roll between two pieces of baking paper until 5 mm thick. Line 23 cm loose-bottomed tart pan. Chill for 30 minutes (I put it in the freezer for 10 instead).
  
• Meanwhile, melt butter in a large pan over a low heat.
  
• Add onion and a pinch of salt, cook for 30 minutes stirring occasionally, until onion is very soft but not browned.
  
• Preheat oven to 200 C.
  
• Line pastry shell with baking paper and pie weights or rice and bake for 20 minutes. Remove paper and bake for a further 5 minutes .
• Reduce oven to 190 C.
  
• Mix onions with parley, salt and pepper and then spread over the base of the tart shell.
  
• Beat eggs, cream and nutmeg together with a fork and pour over the onions.
  
• Bake for 25 minutes or until set and lightly browned.
  

March 2008 - Chocolate Caramel Tart

I will play the game here and make a fuss about the lovely recipes in issue #69 and what I would have loved to have made and then I will move on to what, in reality, was going to be the only option for this blog post. There are a lot of lovely recipes in the issue, in fact I had marked a lot more recipes in this issue than I had in any of the others this month.

Jamie Oliver's recipes this month had a Mexican flavour to them. The Mexican-style barbecued corn in particular looked terrific. It was basically just corn cobs first boiled and then browned on barbecue and then sprinkled with paprika, cheese and lime juice. I think that they would have been very nice as part of a Mexican feast.

Every month there is a regular feature of Chef's Secrets. This month was Melbourne chef and writer Greg Malouf. His recipe was Grilled green-chilli quail with Turkish spoon salad. As part of the step by step Greg shows how to butterfly quails, which might come in handy if I can ever get some. The Turkish spoon salad is interesting. All the ingredients a cut up very finely and dressed with a combination of pomegranate molasses, red wine vinegar, olive oil and Turkish red pepper paste. It sounds very good. I have pomegranate molasses so if I can get some of the red pepper paste I might give the salad a try at some stage.

There is a feature on Tobie Puttock before a new television series that he was making in Tuscany with wine-expert Matt Skinner. It features two great recipes. One for Pappa al Pomodoro (tomato & bread soup). I love tomato and bread soup. Although Tobie's recipe used canned tomatoes. When making tomato soups I much prefer to use fresh tomato as it is the star and I prefer to use the best I can get. Also canned tomatoes can taste slightly (just slightly) metallic at times. Although that could just be psychological. The other wonderful recipe was Porchetta with Salsa Verde. The picture accompanying the recipe looks terrific. However the recipe says that it will feed 10 - 12 people. I know that the recipe could probably be halved successfully but that would still make way too much for one person. I will have to leave it for some time when I am entertaining and try it out then.

Now that I have done my duty and pointed out all the wonderful recipes that I could have made, I will move on to the recipe that I did make. It was really the only recipe that I could make in all honesty. When you see something like Valli Little's Chocolate Caramel Tart staring out from the page at you I don't see how anyone wouldn't be compelled to make it.

It involved boiling a can of sweetened condensed milk to make the wonderful dulce de leche. The recipe gave instructions for boiling the can but, I guess for safety reasons, it wasn't the directions for the way I normally do it. It was suggested to put two small holes in the tin and put it in a pot with water to within a centimetre of the top of the tin. I remember trying to make it this way once in the past and it was a bit of a disaster. The water boiled up a couple of times and of course went in the holes in the can. Also since the water didn't cover the can completely the top portion of the milk in the can wasn't cooked so you had to scoop off a layer of watery milk to get to the caramel, yuck. So instead of following the recipe I just submerged the can in a large pot and simmered for 3 hours, topping up with water as necessary to keep it well covered. After the 3 hours I removed it from the pot and let it cool until it was able to be handled, then I opened it up and was rewarded with the most wonderful rich and thick dulce de leche.

I was unable to get the dark chocolate pastry that was recommended in the recipe. Valli did suggest that regular shortcrust pastry could be used but I thought that it would look much better with the dark chocolate so I googled and found a recipe from the wonderful Maggie Beer here. It was a bit hard to work with and I ended up pressing it into the tin as I couldn't roll it and move it without it breaking up but I was very pleased with the resultant pastry case.

I really enjoyed making this. It is incredibly rich and decadent and only very small pieces can be eaten at a time. I dusted it with cocoa and served it with cream mixed through the remaining caramel and strawberries. The strawberries really helped to cut through the richness and I would definitely recommend having them with it. I would highly recommend this as a dinner party dessert. It is easy to make ahead of time, just refrigerate and then remove before serving to bring back up to room temperature. It is also quite impressive looking but while it takes a bit of time to get all the parts made it is quite easy to make. The dulce de leche could be made several days ahead to make it even easier.

January 2005 - Coconut Cream Tartlets with Glazed Strawberries

There are times when a dessert is just required and I had decided that at least one of my recipes this month, in fact each month, would have to be a dessert. I do not want to over do it with the desserts as it would be easy to just look through the magazines and pick out the best looking dessert in each. However that wouldn't be all that adventurous and would also result in plenty of extra kilos applied to my already generous frame. So once a month it will have to be, unless something really special comes up...ha ha.

It was quite easy to choose a dessert in this issue, as it would be in most of the December/January issues as there are a lot of lovely Christmas dessert recipes. The problem with most dessert recipes is that they make so much and often it is more difficult to halve or quarter a dessert recipe as frequently they contain an odd number of eggs. I have in the past procured some small eggs which allows me to use one regular egg and one small one in half of a recipe containing 3 eggs but sometimes I just cannot be bothered messing around with it. I ended up choosing Coconut Cream Tartlets with Glazed Strawberries. The picture in the magazine looked great, it was easy to make a smaller quantity and left over ingredients can be used in other things. Unfortunately, while it was very easy to make it wasn't all that good. I didn't have strawberries so substituted blueberries. Perhaps their flavour is a bit to subtle for this. The worst problem was the lemon zest in the filling. It over powered everything. I could not distinguish the coconut cream or the blueberries. All there was a creamy lemon and I didn't even put in as much as the recipe said to. If I were to try this again I think that I would omit the lemon altogether. Lime might be a better option but to be honest I think the mascarpone, coconut cream and berries would be enough flavours. I hope that next month's dessert is more successful.

Coconut cream tartlets with glazed strawberries

Ingredients (serves 8)

• 250g mascarpone cheese
• 50ml coconut cream
• 2 tsp grated lemon rind
• 100g caster sugar
• 1 vanilla bean, split, seeds scraped
• 350g small strawberries
• 8 pre-cooked 8cm sweet tart shells (mine were smaller)
  

Method

1. Whisk together the mascarpone, coconut cream, lemon rind and 30g sugar. Refrigerate until needed.
   
2. Place remaining sugar in a saucepan with 1/2 cup (125ml) water and vanilla pod and seeds. Bring to the boil, stirring, then simmer over low heat for 5 minutes until reduced by half. Allow to cool completely, then pour over strawberries.
   
3. To serve, fill the tart shells with the coconut cream mixture, top with a few glazed strawberries and drizzle with a little of the syrup.