Maddie Hughes FOOD BUZZ

My love language is food. If someone cooks for me, or gives me produce from their garden, I couldn't think of anything better. My friend Hope brought me a freshly-picked bunch of rhubarb from her garden, and I traded her half of a big bunch of dill that I'd bought from Tauranga Farmers' Market. That is love. I made something special with that rhubarb, and it was delicious. I hope you try it out!

Ingredients

Pastry:

1⅔ cups plain flour

60g icing sugar

100g chilled butter, coarsely chopped

A few springs of fresh thyme, stalks removed

2 egg yolks, plus 1 beaten egg for eggwash

Filling:

2 cups chopped rhubarb

2 cups sliced strawberries

1 Tbsp cornflour

1 Tbsp lemon juice

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla paste or extract (not essence)

Method

For pastry, add flour, icing sugar, thyme and butter to a food processor. Pulse a few times until butter is dispersed. Add yolks, two tablespoons of iced water and a pinch of salt and pulse until the pastry just comes together. Flatten into a disc, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate to rest, for one to two hours. Roll out on a lightly-floured surface or between two sheets of baking paper to a 30-40cm round. Transfer to an oven tray lined with baking paper and refrigerate until you've made the filling.

For filling: Preheat oven to 190 degrees Celsius. Toss all ingredients together in a large bowl. Spoon filling into the middle of the pastry disk, leaving a five centimetre border.

Fold edges of the pastry over, pleating as you go. It should look like a roughly-formed pie. Brush the pastry with some beaten egg, and sprinkle with raw sugar.

Pop into the oven and cook until the pastry is a deep golden – about 25-35 minutes, depending on your oven. Leave to cool for 10 minutes, slice like a pizza, and enjoy with a big scoop of vanilla ice cream.