Smoked Mackerel Pâté Tart with Scalloped Beetroot
Simply baking a wonderful Christmas tart
Hello! This week’s Christmas recipe is one I have had in my head for a while and which, happily, worked out just as I had imagined it. Scalloping beetroot, it’s something we all should do once… When I baked this, I took it to my friend’s house for a very enjoyable and rare girls night. I was surprised and grateful to find four entire people asked for the recipe!! I hope you enjoy it as much as we did.
This tart is really an amalgamation of a couple of recipes turned into one. It works out sort of like a compact version of my favourite big Scandinavian Christmas Eve feast which I shared last year. It can be served as a starter (why not bake it in tartlet cases as one friend has said she will?), or as a Christmas Eve fishy main (devilled eggs and potato salad are my suggested accompaniments), or even as a Christmas dinner main for pescatarians. Fresh with lemon zest and beetroot, sweet with rye pastry, and hot with a touch of horseradish, the elements of this tart are a match for the strength of flavour of the smoked mackerel. I love its richness, both in flavour and protein, and I love cooking it for people. I love that it’s cheap to make because smoked mackerel and pickled beetroot are bargainous. There really is nothing this tart can’t achieve.
I’ve spoken before about how cooking is really just an acceptable form of showing off, which is something I don’t think any of us should be ashamed about. I’ve also spoken before about how I think savoury bakes deserve a bit of the same dress-up we give to sweet ones, and so, the attention-grabbing scalloped beetroot decoration you see here came to be.
Scalloped is an appealing word to me, but it’s one more often seen on ASOS or swimming costume websites than recipes. Typically a preparation of potatoes, I hope more vegetables will see themselves scalloped in 2024. I aim to instigate this and bring the word back into my food consciousness right here, right now. If you’re cooking for people for Christmas this year, I hope you will try this scalloped tart. There’s something very pleasing about spending 5-10 minutes arranging thin slices of pickled beetroot in such a pattern on top of your pâté. I hope you beam with pride when you do, and I hope your cheeks are as merry as these slices of beetroot when you serve this up to your doting loved ones. Cheers.
Smoked Mackerel Pâté Tart with Scalloped Beetroot
For the pastry
180g plain flour
70g rye flour
150g butter, diced (cold)
60g cold water
For the quiche
100g double cream
1 tbsp milk
2 tbsp crème fraîche
2 large or 3 small eggs
2 smoked mackerel fillets
1 tbsp cream cheese
For the pâté
2 smoked mackerel fillets
100g creme cheese
2 tbsp crème fraîche
1 tsp horseradish
Zest and juice of half a lemon, or more to taste
To decorate
A handful of dill
10-12 pickled baby beetroot or quick-pickled fresh beetroot (see Tips below)
To make the pastry, combine the flours and salt together. With your hands, rub in the cold diced butter, until the flour is coated and the mixture is like breadcrumbs. Add the water and then form the pastry into a disc, cover in cling film and refrigerate it for 20 minutes. Preheat your oven to 180°C. Now roll out the pastry to about 2mm thick, and place it in a greased tart tin (mine was 30cm). Ensure the pastry evenly fills the grooves by easing it in with your fingers. It’s fine if there’s overhang or uneven parts, it’s all part of the charm I say. Cover any cracks with extra pastry from the edges should any appear. Lightly pierce the bottom with a fork all over, then top with greaseproof paper and baking beans and blind bake the pastry until it’s brown and sandy to touch (about 15 minutes).
To make the quiche filling, whisk or blend together the cream, eggs, crème fraîche and milk until smooth. Whisk in the cream cheese, then add the smoked mackerel fillets, broken up into flakes, and a good amount of seasoning. Pour into the baked tart case, and bake the quiche for 15 minutes (it doesn’t need terribly long because it’s only a half quantity of quiche).
Meanwhile make the pâté by blending the smoked mackerel fillets with 100g of cream cheese and the crème fraîche together with a hand blender until it’s smooth. Add the horseradish, a little chopped dill, lemon zest and juice, plus salt and pepper to taste and mix well.
Take the quiche out of the oven and allow it to cool completely. When it has, carefully remove it from the tin onto a serving board or plate, and top with the mackerel pâté, spreading it out with an offset spatula (I don’t actually have one but I dream of doing this when I get one) or a regular spatula, right to the edges.
Using a sharp knife or mandolin, thinly slice your pickled baby beetroot. Place the slices on a plate on top of kitchen paper to catch any bleeding beetroot juice. Now, layer the beetroot rounds horizontally from the top far side to the bottom near side horizontally, slightly overlapping each last row as you go. Save the smaller circles for the edges. When the whole tart is covered, garnish with a few fronds of dill and a grating of lemon zest. Great job!!
Tips
When you make the mackerel pâté, ensure all the ingredients are cold, as this will help the texture remain thick. You want the pâté as cold as possible when you spread it on the tart.
When slicing the pickled beetroot on a mandolin, the less firmly you push, the thinner and more transparent the slices will be. If some don’t come out full circles it’s fine because the scallop pattern means you can cover up any jagged edges. Watch your fingers!
If you want to quick-pickle your own beetroot, boil small beetroot with their skins on, then when they’re completely tender, peel them. Make a pickling liquid by mixing 100ml boiling water, 80ml white wine vinegar, 1 tsp salt, and 1 tsp sugar and 1 tsp mustard seeds. Thinly slice the beetroot on a mandolin or with a knife, then place them in a small bowl, and pour the pickling liquid over.
It is my aim to try to remain merry, but it’s quite hard when the UK government continues to ignore the desperate situation in Gaza. Or when the Tories bring in policies like only allowing migrants who earn £38,700 to move to this country (meaning if I wasn’t from here, I wouldn’t qualify). And yet they pay our nurses, teachers, and care workers much less than this… How do they expect the sectors so desperately in need of a workforce (healthcare, social care, hospitality) to fill vacancies with this unhinged requirement?
I’ve been feeling hot fury recently about how little most people in this country are paid, and how hard it is for us to make ends meet at a time when just to afford basic necessities like energy and water is so difficult.
In opposition, we have the least inspiring Labour leader in my lifetime (and that’s saying something) Keir Starmer warning us not to expect government “to turn on the spending taps” and committing to a policy of austerity should he win next year’s election. What a thing to say to people who’ve suffered 15 years of the Tories. Is it just me who feels like people aren’t living in this country, we’re barely existing? It is my nature to be a blind optimist but please someone, show me the light. Or else chuck a Smoked Mackerel Tart at Keir, for the sake of us all. And rub it in, as if it were a cream pie. That’d work too.
The only hope I can offer is to suggest you stay up to date with the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition, a broad coalition of left wing groups and organisations, and the only party I will be voting for next year. I’m hoping, longing, praying for something new.
Back soon with Christmas recipe number three!