Silverbeet & olive tart with parmesan crust
Greens and olives in a savoury custard is one of the oldest ideas in Mediterranean cooking, and one of the easiest to get slightly wrong. Wet chard, over-salted olives and an unbaked base are the three ways it fails. Here is the version that works.
Chard — silverbeet, blette, bietola, depending on where you are standing — is the great underrated tart green. It has more body than spinach and does not collapse into a wet green slick, the stalks give a mild sweetness if you use them, and it takes salt and olives without being bullied. Paired with a good black olive and set in a cream custard, in a pastry made short with grated parmesan, it makes the kind of lunch that looks like far more work than it is.
Choosing the olive
This is the decision that makes or breaks the tart, and most recipes wave at it. You want a firm, fully flavoured black olive that will hold its shape and its colour in the oven. A properly brine-cured Kalamata is the classic and the safest choice: winey, fruity, firm enough to slice. A dry-salt-cured wrinkled olive works beautifully too and brings more intensity, but it is much saltier, so use less and taste the filling before you add any salt at all.
What to avoid is the canned mild black olive. It is too soft, too watery and too bland — it will disintegrate into the custard and leave grey streaks with no flavour to show for it. Pit the olives yourself if you can. Pre-pitted olives sit in brine with a hole in them and lose flavour to the liquid ; a few minutes with the flat of a knife gets you a better tart.
| Olive | In this tart | Adjust |
|---|---|---|
| Brine-cured Kalamata | Ideal : firm, winey, holds its shape and colour | Nothing — the reference choice |
| Dry salt-cured black | Excellent, more intense and slightly chewy | Use about a third less ; do not salt the custard |
| Green Manzanilla or Picholine | Bright and sharp, a different but good tart | Chop smaller ; add lemon zest to match |
| Canned ripe black | Soft, watery, colours the custard grey | Avoid, or drain and roast briefly first |
| Stuffed olives | Fillings turn muddy in the oven | Not for baking |
The tart
For a long rectangular tin, serving six. Pastry: 225 g plain flour, 50 g finely grated parmesan, 100 g cold unsalted butter in cubes, a good pinch of salt, and about four tablespoons of iced water. Filling: a tablespoon of olive oil, one red onion finely chopped, two cloves of garlic, two tablespoons of chopped thyme, 500 g chard leaves, two eggs plus one yolk, 250 ml cream, 250 g pitted black olives, halved.
Blitz the flour, parmesan, butter and salt to fine crumbs, add the water and bring the pastry together in a smooth ball ; wrap and rest it in the fridge for half an hour. Roll it out, line the tin, and rest it cold again for another half hour — this second rest is what stops the sides slumping. Line with paper and baking beans and blind bake at 190 °C for about fifteen minutes, then lift out the beans and give it another five minutes to dry the base properly.
Meanwhile, soften the onion in the olive oil over medium heat, add the garlic and thyme for a few seconds only, then the chopped chard leaves, and cook just until they wilt. Tip the whole lot into a sieve and press hard. This is the step people skip and the reason tarts go soggy: chard holds an astonishing amount of water, and every drop you leave in ends up under your pastry.
Beat the eggs, yolk and cream with plenty of black pepper. Taste before salting — between the parmesan and the olives there may already be enough. Spread the cooled chard over the base, scatter the olives, pour over the custard, and bake at 190 °C for around thirty minutes until barely set with a slight wobble at the centre. Let it rest twenty minutes before cutting.
Where it goes wrong, and the fixes
- Soggy base : the chard was not squeezed, or the blind bake was cut short. Both are fixable and neither is optional.
- Grey custard : soft canned olives bleeding. Use firm brine-cured fruit and halve rather than slice thinly.
- Too salty : parmesan plus olives plus seasoned custard. Salt last, if at all.
- Cracked, rubbery filling : the oven was too hot or the tart overcooked. Pull it while the centre still trembles.
- Shrunken pastry : it went into the oven warm. Chill it in the tin before baking, always.
- Good additions : anchovy melted into the onions, lemon zest, a handful of pine nuts, or ricotta folded into the custard.
Chard and olive tart : common questions
Can I use spinach instead of chard?
Yes, but use more of it and squeeze it even harder — spinach collapses to a fraction of its volume and carries a great deal of water. Chard holds its texture better in a baked custard.
Which olives work best?
Firm brine-cured black olives such as Kalamata. Dry salt-cured olives are excellent but much saltier, so reduce the quantity. Avoid soft canned ripe olives, which go watery and dull the custard.
Why blind bake at all?
Because a wet filling on raw pastry steams the base rather than baking it. Blind baking sets and dries the shell so the custard cannot soak in.
Can it be made ahead?
Yes. It is very good at room temperature and reheats well in a moderate oven for ten minutes. Do not refrigerate and then serve it cold from the fridge — the butter in the pastry goes hard and the flavour flattens.
Can I make it without cream?
Use whole milk with an extra egg yolk, or half milk and half ricotta for something lighter and slightly grainier. The custard will be less rich but it still sets properly.
The trick nobody writes down is to taste the olives before you commit. Brines vary enormously from tub to tub, and a batch that has been sitting in a strong brine for months can carry double the salt of another labelled the same way. Eat one, then decide whether the custard needs any salt and whether 250 g is right. Cooking with olives is not like cooking with salt from a packet — the ingredient is alive and it changes, and the only instrument that copes with that is your own mouth.
House recipe, developed from the classic Mediterranean pairing of chard, cream and cured black olives.