Polenta Crust - a gluten-free alternative to pastry

With my parents coming for lunch yesterday, I was looking for something interesting to make that could use up one of three butternut squash that was sitting in my fruit bowl. I soon found a Nigel Slater recipe for a butternut squash and feta tart and decided to adapt it.

The first task was to make a gluten-free substitute for the pastry base. Making up pastry with gluten-free flour is easy but the resulting dough is very hard to handle. In normal pastry the gluten allows the pastry to stretch, so rolling it out, picking it up and placing it into a tart tin is relatively easy. Gluten-free pastry completely lacks this stretch and tends to be very sticky. Some suggest rolling it out between sheets of cling film but you still end up trying to manhandle this into the tin with varying degrees of success. Or at least I do. I was therefore interested to see if there was something else I could try, which is when I came across a recipe by Donna Hay for a polenta crust tomato tart. I've not heard of Donna Hay before but I understand from a friend that she is very big in Australia and New Zealand and I will certainly be keeping an eye out for recipes from her from now on.

Her polenta crust recipe seemed to be very easy indeed and didn't involve having to rest the polenta dough in the fridge for half an hour, which is generally the rule for all pastry (gluten or no gluten). All you had to do was whizz 170g instant polenta, 75g plain flour (I used Dove's Farm gluten-free) and 75g soft unsalted butter together with 80ml water and a pinch of salt in a food processor until it formed into a dough - a matter of seconds. Then tip this out and press it into a loose-bottomed tart tin. I found spreading the mixture evenly around the tin was easiest done with the back of a spoon. I then lined the pastry with non-stick baking paper, tipped in some baking beans (actually, I use rice) and baked it in the oven (200C, 180C fan, gas mark 6) for 15 minutes before removing the paper and beans/rice and baking for a further 10 minutes or so until it was crisp.  It had a beautiful golden yellow colour.

Meanwhile, I had been further adapting Nigel Slater's recipe swapping his suggested ingredients with what I had to hand. I peeled, diced and steamed the butternut squash until tender; cut 150g hard goats cheese into small cubes; whisked 2 eggs with 100ml of half fat créme fraîce, 100ml double cream, some chopped fresh thyme, and some salt and pepper.

Once the polenta crust was cooked, I added the cooked diced squash and diced cheese, packing it fairly tightly into the crust before pouring over the egg and cream mixture and sprinkling the top with 40g finely grated Parmesan. I then carefully lifted the tin onto a baking tray and baked it in the oven (180C, 160C fan, gas mark 4) for about 35 minutes. The butter from the polenta crust did ooze out of the bottom of the tin so having it on a baking tray was essential. It may also help with any leaks or spills of the cream mixture as you transfer the tart to the oven.

Anyway, the result was great. I'll certainly be using the polenta crust again and I'm sure it would work for a sweet tart if you replace the pinch of salt with a pinch of sugar.