FuzzyChef Food & Pottery

It's now late summer, and if you have a vegetable garden like I do, you're festooned with a glut of tomatoes. Maybe you've already made gazpacho, fresh tomato sauce, Turkish salad, and more tomato things. The tomatoes keep coming in from the gardent.

It's time for something French: a tomato tart.

This recipe is pretty simple, but it does require some gourmet ingredients. It also requires you to be comfortable working with puff pastry. Since the ingredients are so critical here, some notes on them before the recipe.

This tart is really much better with all-butter puff pastry, which I realize is hard to find in the US. I used Trader Joe's, possibly the only butter puff pastry in the US that is both good and affordable, but is sadly only available seasonally (and not in summer). This recipe is sized for TJ's 18oz box of puff pastry (which comes in 2 squares). If you're using Dufour's 14oz box, or some other brand, you'll need to scale accordingly. And, if all you can get is palm-oil-based puff pastry, use it anyway -- or made your own rough puff.

The cheese I used was homemade, a Neufchâtel-style cheese I made from some raw milk a friend gave me. You won't have this, so use chèvre, ricotta, camebert (rind removed), or a similar soft cheese with mild flavor. The cheese needs to be very soft, but not too wet, so if you do use ricotta or farmer cheese make sure to drain it or press it dry.

This recipe also uses olive tapenade. French tapenade is generally very mild flavored and that's what you want here. If you can't get any, then just puree a cup of pitted ripe black olives (not canned). Another option is actually mustard; French tomato tarts often feature it instead of the tapenade.

French-style tomato tart

• 18oz fridge-temperature puff pastry
• 8-10 oz soft mild cheese (see blog post)
• 2-3 oz olive tapenade
• 6 to 8 medium tomatoes or 4 to 6 large tomatoes
• 2 tsp fresh thyme leaves, or 1 tsp dried
• 1 oz finely grated Comte, Gruyere, or Parmigiano cheese
• Fresh ground pepper
• Olive oil for drizzling
• Baking sheet(s), sharp knife, baking parchment, pie weights, rolling pin, spreading spatula

Heat the oven to 375F with fan, or 400F if you don't have a fan. Spread out the puff pastry on top of baking parchment, using one sheet of parchment for each square if using the TJ's pastry. Flatten it out a bit using the rolling pin.

Using the point of a small, sharp knife, cut around 1/8" deep square/rectangle around 1/2" from the edges of the pastry. You're making a box for the filling, where the edge of the pastry will be the "crust". Use a fork or a dough docker to dock (make indents) all over the pastry inside the box. Cut some more parchment to fit the inside of the box, place it on the pastry and pile pie weights on it to keep the center of the pastry compressed.

Bake for 15 minutes. The edge portion should puff up and the pastry should be very lightly browned and dry. If the pastry is still "wet" and the parchment won't pull free, give it another 3-5 minutes. Let cool for at least 15 minutes.

Spread the center of the pastry with the cheese and the tapenade. Which order you spread them in depends on their relative softness; you want to spread the softer thing on top.

Slice the tomatoes around 1/4" thick and cover the cheese with the slices, slightly overlapping. Sprinkle the thyme leaves across the top, along with a little ground pepper. Evenly cover with the grated Comte or Gruyere, and drizzle with a little high-quality olive oil.

Put the tart back in the oven and bake for another 12-18 minutes. It's done when the pastry finishes browning, and the tomatoes soften just slightly. Do not overcook, as it will turn into tomato/cheese soup.

Remove from the oven, slide the tart onto a cooling rack, and allow to cool for at least 10 minutes. Slice into squares. The tart can be eaten warm, but is easier to handle at room temperature. It does not reheat or freeze well; allow left overs to come to room temperature and eat them that way.

Serves four as a light meal with a green salad, or 6-8 as a first course.