In those fondly remembered days when we lived on board our yacht Oasis in the Caribbean, one of our favourite visits was to the French islands Les Saintes. There we had a memorable Smoked Swordfish Tart at Le Genois.
It is fairly unusual to find smoked swordfish or marlin outside of the Caribbean I think, but sometimes here I find smoked tuna slices, which fits the bill perfectly. I haven’t tried it with canned smoked fish, as the texture of fresh (or defrosted) is so much nicer. You can use smoked salmon or trout instead.
For a non-fast day, I made this with a wholewheat shortcrust base, but it would work equally well as a crustless quiche – just make sure that you use a really good non-stick dish or grease it really well. You can have 4 generous servings from your tart – it comes to 488 calories with the pastry version – but just 260 per serving for a crustless one, so that would be a lovely main dish for a fast day, to serve with a crisp green salad or steamed vegetables. The serving shown in the photo is just 1/6, at only 320 kcals.
Just imagine that you are looking over crystal clear blue waters and feeling the tropical heat…
You can get a glimpse of the lovely islands of Les Saintes (and other delightful places) in my cruising journal.
- 150g wholewheat flour (or half and half wholewheat and plain white)
- 75g unsalted butter
- pinch salt
- water to mix
- 150g smoked tuna (or swordfish, marlin, salmon or trout)
- 3 eggs
- 200ml soya milk (or dairy milk)
- 1 small red onion, finely sliced
- 1 tbsp chopped parsley
- salt and black pepper, to taste
- 1 tbsp finely chopped parsley
- 1 tsp capers, drained and chopped
- zest of 1 orange
- 1 clove garlic, crushed
- 2 tbsp virgin olive oil
- Crumble the butter into the flour and salt and add enough water to make a dough.
- Preheat the oven to 160c while the dough rests in the fridge, wrapped in cling film.
- Grease a quiche dish.
- Roll out the pastry quite thinly and line the dish, then trim the edges.
- Bake blind for 10 minutes covered with paper and baking beans, then 10 minutes without.
- Remove the dish and raise oven temp to 180c
- Lay the smoked fish evenly over the pastry (or directly into the dish if going crustless).
- Distribute the finely sliced onion over the top.
- Beat the eggs in a jug and top up to 300ml with milk (or milk and cream if you want it more luscious).
- Season and add chopped parsley then pour over the fish.
- Bake for about 30 minutes, until the egg is set and the top golden.
- For the gremolata, mix all the ingredients together in a small bowl.
- Serve the tart hot, warm or cool, with the gremolata spooned over.
- Garnish with orange slices.
- As this has no cheese, it is easily adapted to be completely dairy free, using a good quality sunflower or olive oil based spread as an alternative to butter for the pastry.
- I use soya milk, but oat milk or dairy milk would both be suitable.
- The original gremolata was made with finely sliced spring onion, parsley and lemon zest, which is equally good.
- I had pastry left over from the above quantity - enough to make a couple of individual tart cases for another time.