Rachel's recipes: New potato, rosemary and cheese tart – with or without pastry

It's that time of year for teeny weeny new potatoes that have that gorgeous slightly minerally taste and are so sweet it really does feel like eating “bon bons” when you pop them in your mouth. Simply cooked with a little butter and an assortment of fresh herbs (parsley, dill, chervil) they are divine. My favorite take however comes from days spent on the Aegean in Turkey – still warm potatoes drizzled with rich fruity olive oil, spring onions, parsley, lemon juice and olives. But roast teeny weeny potatoes, surrounded by roasted garlic and rosemary are a fast, healthy and sunshiny version of roast potatoes and it's those flavors that I love in this tart. The tart is inspired by Alison Henderson’s Cheddar Cheese, Onion and Potato Tart as described by Darina Allen which I have made many times. However for spring it's this version that works. Due to the inclusion of the potatoes inside the tart you only have to add salad and a glass of wine for a light lunch or dinner. Salad at this time of year is a multi-coloured affair – grab some “salata” (butter lettuce), “loboda” (the pinky purply little leaves variously Garden Orache, Red Orach, Mountain Spinach, French Spinach, or simply "orache" or arrach) and crunchy “ridichii” (radishes) from the market and dribble with a little olive oil and add lemon juice to keep things zesty. The pastry is the easy peasy “good oil” pastry but if pastry is not your thing, oil a tin well (preferably a non stick one) and bake the filling only and create a no pastry tart (I included the pastry recipe also below, in case you decide to go for it) . Gadgets & Gizmos I personally always prefer loose bottomed metal quiche tins but if you have a ceramic quiche dish that is fine too. If you are not using pastry then a well oiled baking tin will work well. Ingredients – serves six to eight and freezes cut into portions very well The amounts of potatoes, cheese and herbs are for guidance but the quiche filling works for a 22cm deep (4.5cm) quiche ring The Filling 500g of the smallest potatoes you can find- skins on 1 large onion finely diced 1 large bunch of parsley roughly chopped 3-4 spring onions roughly chopped 200g strong mature cheese. Pecorino is great, mature cheddar with some parmesan added as well is good. In Romania I use the “cascaval de capra” (goat cheese) as it is stronger or I buy the Dutch cheese 400ml of milk or cream 3 eggs A little salt depending on the saltiness of the cheese, a little black pepper 1 sprig rosemary plus 2-3 for decoration Filling Cut any larger potatoes in half but the really small ones (kind of the size of a cherry is ideal) leave whole. Fry in a small quantity of olive oil until just cooked and those crispy crunchy bits appear which are so hard to resist. At this point add the onion and cook until just translucent. Leave to cool a little (or use leftover potatoes fried up with an onion the day before) and assemble the tart. Below is the pastry recipe – after this step, add the rest of the filling.