Recipe: tomato tarts for late summer days
make the pastry, go for a swim, slice the tomatoes and it's a happy day
It was early August and I was spending the morning at Les Trois Parcelles farm, just down the road from the restaurant-association, Aux Bons Vivres, I was working at. I was plucking and pruning and tidying the rows of tomatoes that had gotten out of hand over the previous two weeks of perfect growing weather. Standing in amongst those rows was euphoric, it was nirvana. That smell of the leaves of tomatoes filling the warm and thick air around us was intoxicating as we snipped the leaves at the bottom of the plant to prevent rotting. The taste of the tomatoes that had fallen for us to snack on as we went were so sweet, bursting in your mouth like grapes. The rows of tomatoes were like sculpture with green, black, red, yellow gems hanging off the windy, gangly, perky vines. As everyone else quickly disappeared at the call that it was lunch time back at the brothel-turned-farmhouse, I stayed put in amongst those rows, those vines, wandering with my camera, coming across a new variety of tomato every few steps. The tomatoes were so happy, so healthy on that late summer day. The 60 different varieties all so different, and I remember thinking would all bring such different tastes, feels and vibes to a dish. A small firm, round black tomato versus a large, imperfect orange beauty. Or imagine them slathered in olive oil in a bowl together, maybe with some of the purple basil that sat in a row at my feet in there too, the colours wildly striking, the intrigue of trying the two side by side.
I remember thinking how walking amongst those rows felt more like walking through an installation artwork at the Tate than walking through a field in a farm, but that this beauty is beyond anything that could be recreated, that could be ticketed — the smells, the coolness that the vines bring the thick summer heat, the brushing of the leaves as you wander through. Incredible that such perfect beauty can come out of the ground, can be natural, and that after they feed our eyes with their beauty, they feed our stomachs, nourishing us and bringing us such pleasure with their juicy sweetness.
Thinking about it now, I couldn’t tell you how long I was there for, snapping away — maybe an hour, maybe a few? I was completely lost in their world. Here are some of my favourite photographs from that afternoon.
It’s in these moments, these late summer days, that a tomato tart comes to mind. There’s something so romantic, so elegant about a tomato tart, yet it’s really a very humble thing. Some butter, water, flour for the pastry, maybe a few dollops of a soft white cheese — chèvre perhaps — and slices of tomato. There’s not a lot to it, but it has to be one of the most pleasurable things to put in your mouth during these warm days that we’ll soon long for. A well-dressed green salad and a glass of something cold and white, and maybe a slice of cheese, and that’s a delightful meal.
The wonderful thing about a tomato tart is that you can really follow your heart. Find yourself a trusty pastry recipe and you’re off — that’s my usual tactic. The pastry recipe I use (and this is for everything, from apricot tarts to pissaladière) is Danielle Alvarez’s flaky pastry in her latest book, Recipes for a Lifetime of Beautiful Cooking with the brilliant Libby Travers. The recipe is magic, it’s life changing — much like knowing the woman behind it.
If there are onions around I may caramelise a few to put on the base of the pastry; if there’s goat’s cheese about I’ll crumble that over the slices of tomatoes before it goes into the oven; if there are herbs to be used up I may make a salsa verde to drizzle over the finished tart. Or, I may simply make the pastry, roll it out and dust it with flour, maybe smear over some Dijon mustard, cut thick slices of tomato and proceed to go deep into that state of arranging different shapes and colours of tomatoes onto a pastry round — there’s nothing quite like it. Like a blank canvas and a few tubes of paint on an afternoon of nowhere to be, no one to see. I’ll fold the side of the pastry up, brush it with an egg wash, sprinkle everything — tomatoes and pastry edge — with a good pinch of salt and a fresh crack of black pepper, drizzle the tomatoes with a little olive oil, and pop it on a tray with baking paper and into a hot oven, about 200C degrees, for about 40 minutes, turning it occasionally. The trick is to let it go as long as you feel you can without the pastry burning. And as Danielle taught me, removing the tart from the baking paper, sliding it straight onto a cooking rack as soon as it comes out of the oven, will prevent the pastry from steaming and going soggy, giving you the fabulous crisp base.
That’s how I’m most inclined to tomato tart. To me, the goal of such a tart is to simply exhibit the tomatoes that have had love, time, sunshine, water, energy poured into them so doing as little as possible to the juicy beauties is the goal — simply letting them be their beautiful selves in their most pure state.
Once you’ve made that once or twice, you might find yourself wanting to explore the world of tomato tarts, and what a world it is.
Perhaps that’s incorporating the joy that is late summer produce of zucchini and eggplant in company with ricotta and anchovy (swoon), in which case I suggest Julius Roberts’ ratatouille galette that Mama made for us just the other night from his recent book The Farm Table. It was pure heaven.
Perhaps it’s going back to the classics, to Elizabeth David’s first cookbook A Book of Mediterranean Food, to her more rich tarte aux tomates. The tart uses a béchamel that’s spiked with tomato purée; it calls for black olives and it calls for chicken livers that have been sautéed in butter, all before it calls for the tomatoes. Thrilling.
Perhaps it’s giving the pastry a little more of the stage, going down a Niçoise path with Dominique Le Stanc’s recipe that he makes in his 20-seat restaurant in Nice, La Merenda. It’s tomato tart perfection.
Perhaps, while we’re in Nice, it’s Rachel Roddy’s tomato, anchovy, onion and olive tart, or a pissadella. As Rachel explains, ‘also known as sardenaira, piscalandrea or pizza alla Ligure, pissadella is part of a family of anchovy-onion-tomato-olive-topped flatbreads typical of Liguria (and of Nice in France, which has a tomato-less version called pissaladière, and a reminder of shifting borders and common cooking).’ So interesting, so delicious.
Perhaps it’s going down the always-divine tarte Tatin route with Anna Jones’ tomato tarte Tatin.
From the last summer tomatoes in the fields of Les Trois Parcelles in a tiny village south of Paris, to the late summer tomatoes in Papa’s vegetable garden in a spot by the sea south of Sydney, it’s quite the privilege to have two tomato tart seasons in a row. If you’re in the southern hemisphere, do bring some joy to your late summer days with one of these tarts — a simple pleasure that’s sure to please.
And it’s quite the privilege to have had this time with you.
On this 30-something degree late-summer Sunday, there are talks here of gazpacho for dinner after a late-afternoon dip. Tomato and cherry gazpacho with basil leaves and olive oil, and garlic-rubbed toasted sourdough on the side, or tomato and strawberry also gorg. Might have to crack a tin of sardines, too. Oh these are the days.
H. X
P.S. If you’re not in a tomato tart mood — strange, but I suppose strange things do happen — here are some of my words written from the northern hemisphere during the late summer days of the summer just gone on a recipe for tomates farcies.
I can think of no better start to a quiet Sunday morning than ambling (almost flaneuring) along with you and your thoughts, your senses and especially your words.