Heirloom Tomato Tart
Heirloom Tomato Tart
Tomato season has officially begun and I’m a woman obsessed. All of the delicious, funky-looking heirloom varieties scattered across the tables at the Hollywood Farmers’ Market last Sunday tempted me like Tribbles. They were so fresh. They smelled so good intoxicating. And then I tried one, the juice dripping from my chin and between my fingers. Before I knew it, my bag was overflowing with Cherokee Purples, Golden Jubilees, Brandywines, Marvel Stripes and Black Crimsons from Tutii Frutti Farms, all bumping up against each other in the hot August sun.
The trouble with Tribbles, if you’ve seen the Star Trek episode, is that they multiply at breakneck speed. Initially there was one, but suddenly there are so many Tribbles that Kirk and Uhura can’t figure out what to do with them all. While my tomatoes didn’t exactly reproduce in my bag or on my countertop, I’ve ended up with way more than I’d planned to use and a freshness meter counting down like a time bomb.
Overripe tomatoes are as bad as, if not worse than, under-ripe ones. They are like being forced to eat raw slugs. Fortunately, cooked tomatoes, if done right, can mask the texture of a softening tomato, concentrating the sugars and elevating the tomato-y flavor to something quite decadent. (It’s why Nancy Silverton’s Mozza Caprese, with oven-dried tomatoes, is always so delicious.) Unfortunately, it can’t do anything for an unripe tomato. Nothing can.
Combine the flavor explosion of these heat-improved tomatoes with flakey, buttery puff pastry and you have a recipe for…Well, you have the recipe for an easy-to-make tomato tart! (You can use this same recipe for the bounty of figs showing up at farmers’ markets, too.)
Heirloom Tomato Tart
1 Sheet frozen puff pastry, thawed
2 Medium-sized heirloom tomatoes
1 egg, beaten
Olive Oil
Salt
Pepper
Heat oven to 400 degrees. Place puff pastry sheet on a lightly greased or parchment-lined baking sheet. Brush with egg and bake for 15 minutes or until lightly-golden.
While the puff pastry is baking, cut off the tops of the tomatoes, seed and slice. You can slice them into rounds or half moons, depending on the shape of the tomato.
Remove the puff pastry from the oven and let cool, but keep oven on. When cool, arrange tomatoes on the pastry, drizzle with olive and sprinkle with salt and fresh-ground black pepper. Place back in the oven for five minutes to heat the tomatoes. Drizzle again with olive oil and finish with fleur de sel. Serves four.
August 7th, 2008 at 8:23 am
Gorgeous. Looks like that’d make a great brunch offering.
August 7th, 2008 at 11:18 am
I have a ton of tomatoes sitting on my kitchen window sill as we speak. I think I’m going to finish off a few just like this.
August 7th, 2008 at 11:31 am
Decadent!
August 7th, 2008 at 1:04 pm
I love how incredibly easy this recipe is…Considering how fast all the tomatoes are ripening, I don’t have to feel guilty about hurrying out to my local Trader Joes to buy a puff pastry so I can make this dish tonight!
Delicious!
August 8th, 2008 at 8:19 am
Oh as soon as mine are ripe I am making this!
August 8th, 2008 at 10:21 am
This looks so great!
August 11th, 2008 at 11:17 am
Haha! I’m so glad lots of other people are having to creatively deal with tomato-obsession. I am running out of ideas and this helps out enormously. Thanks!
August 11th, 2008 at 5:18 pm
I bet this is delicious. I’m a tomato fanatic. I can’t wait to try this one.
August 13th, 2008 at 12:09 pm
[...] pasta, etc. I was looking for a new way to use up my bounty of garden fresh tomatoes, and found this recipe from SpicySaltySweet. I didn’t have those lovely heirloom tomatoes that she did, but [...]
August 13th, 2008 at 12:17 pm
hey, thanks for sharing this – it’s great! As you can see above, I used your recipe for dinner last night.
August 26th, 2008 at 9:40 am
This looks awesome! What a great way to use up a ton of heirlooms I bought at the farmers market, and are going bad faster than I can eat them!!
It was great to meet on Saturday BTW!
August 26th, 2008 at 9:46 am
Great to meet you, too, Matt! I’ve got an easy gazpacho recipe coming up next. I can’t escape the tomatoes!
August 28th, 2008 at 1:04 pm
Hi Leah!
I tried this recipe for my last dinner party and it turned out so well and was so delicious! Not to mention that it was incredibly Easy. I’d say this is a Winner!
Thanks for your great blog and beautiful pictures. You’ve got a converted reader.
Sharon
August 28th, 2008 at 1:11 pm
Thanks, Sharon!
December 13th, 2008 at 11:01 pm
Great to know someone else is into tomatoes as much as me. I love the tribbles!! Dad “made” me an old version star trek fan. Just an fyi–I am in the seed biz and have seen the food shortages beginning. That is why I am beginning to save non hybrid vegetable seeds.
No family should be without an emergency survival garden plan. It is easy, affordable and will put your mind at ease. Remember to only use non modified (gmo)untreated (for chemicals) seeds. And MOST IMPORTANT, and I cant stress this fact enough!! your garden seeds MUST not be a HYBRYD. The dna has been altered with a terminator gene that essentally makes the seed sterile after its first use and therefore cant be used to produce viable seds for the following years. This is important if we run into a food shortage in the next year or two. You should start growing and saving seeds NOW. If you dont need them in the future you are only out $50 and you have eaten well all year.
We sell a full garden of seeds at http://www.backyardheirloomseeds.net Also canning varieties, herbs and medicinal herbs. Think ahead and prepare. It cant hurt.