A vegetable torta

A vegetable torta made with swiss chard, french beans, potatoes, courgettes, borlotti beans, pesto and pine nuts.

SERVES 4

This dish will take around one and a half hours from start to finish with around 50 minutes of prep time and 40 minutes of cooking time at 165°C. You will need a cake tin.

TOP TIPS:

You want all the vegetables to come together to create on united flavour, and yet still retain their identity.

STEPS  

Prepare the vegetables:

Remove the tough sides from the corallo beans and tail the french beans. Slice the corallo beans finely at a slight angle, peel the potatoes and cut into small cubes. Slice the courgettes and remove the swiss chard leaves from their stalks. Blanch all the vegetables, except the courgettes, one vegetable at a time.

Toast the pine nuts, either in a small frying pan or in the oven (160°C for ten minutes).

In a heavy based pan place a generous amount of olive oil and the garlic clove. Heat until the garlic becomes golden and has flavoured the oil. Remove the garlic, add the chopped courgettes and on a gentle heat cook the courgettes until they begin to break up. Add the blanched potatoes to the pan and work into the courgettes with a wooden spoon. Cook for five more minutes before adding the corallo beans. Chop the french beans and the swiss chard and add these as well as the borlotti beans

Cook the mixture on a gentle heat stirring with a wooden spoon until there is no water left in the pan. The vegetables will come together as one mass but still be distinguishable from one another.

Remove from the heat and leave to cool for twenty minutes before adding the eggs one by one. Add most of the grated parmigiano reggiano and the pecorino, half of the pine nuts, the pesto and the stracchino. Taste the mixture and if necessary, add salt.

Grease a round cake tin and cut a round of greaseproof paper to fit neatly in the bottom. Cover the paper with a thin layer of breadcrumbs, the rest of the grated cheese and the remaining pine nuts. Carefully fill the baking dish with the vegetable mixture and bake in a pre-heated oven for forty minutes at 165°C.

Remove from the oven and leave to rest for at least forty minutes. Turn out onto a plate, carefully remove the baking paper from the top, cover with a little pesto and serve.