I have been seeing so many beautiful photos of people baking with those bunches of multicolored carrots and I have finally jumped on the bandwagon. I finally found some beautiful rainbow carrots at the farmer’s market this weekend and since I had an overwhelming amount of ricotta left in my fridge, I came up with this delicious little savory tart! If you can’t find any rainbow carrots, zucchini would also work so great for this.
what you need:
- 1/2 of my Perfect Flaky Pie Crust (you can also totally cheat and buy premade crust or even use frozen puff pastry)
- 1/4 cup of flour, for rolling
- 1 lb rainbow carrots, washed and peeled
- Olive oil
- Salt
- Pepper
- 1 cup ricotta
- 1 tsp minced garlic
- 1 tablespoon grated parmesan, plus more for garnish
- 1/4 cup chopped fresh basil
- 1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
- 1 egg, whisked thoroughly (egg wash)
- Flaky sea salt optional, for garnish
- special equipment needed: rolling pin, food processor, mandolin, pastry brush or paint brush
what you need to do:
- Preheat your oven to 400 degrees F.
- Prepare your carrots. There are two options here for cutting them:
- If you have a mandolin or you are pretty skilled with a knife, cut your carrots lengthwise into thin 1/4 inch wide strips.
- If you do NOT have a mandolin and you are not confident in your knife skills, cut your carrots into thin 1/4 in thin disks.
- Toss your carrots in salt, pepper, and a drizzle of olive oil.
- Spread out carrots evenly on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper and bake 15 – 20 minutes, or until carrots are ALMOST cooked through and are beginning to soften.
- Remove from oven and set aside to cool.
- Now, in a food processor, put in your ricotta, basil, parsley, parmesan, garlic, 1/4 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp pepper, and a generous drizzle of olive oil.
- Whip in food processor about 1 minute, or until it is super smooth. Set aside.
- Prepare a large cookie sheet with parchment paper and set aside.
- Flour your surface and your rolling pin and begin to roll out your dough into a rectangle. I rolled mine to be about 11 x 8.
- Transfer to your cookie sheet by gently rolling it up in your rolling pin and then unrolling it onto the parchment.
- Spread your ricotta filling in the center of the dough, leaving about 1 inch of the dough around the edges (you will be folding it over!)
- Now arrange your roasted carrots on top of the ricotta filling. I did mine horizontally but feel free to arrange however you like!
- Fold the naked crust edges in and around the carrots. Pushing down gently to ensure it is secure.
- Using whatever carrots you have remaining, layer one more round of carrots.
- Using a pastry brush or paint brush, paint on the egg wash all over the crust.
- Sprinkle parmesan on the crust and over the carrots.
- Crack fresh pepper on top as well.
- Bake in the 400 degree F oven for about 30 – 40 minutes, or until the crust is golden brown.
- Top with some fresh chopped herbs and a sprinkle of flaky sea salt!
