My French Kitchen Daily

"Tarte Paysanne has a rich, sunny flavor. Make it with the best tomatoes you can find." – Harris, from My French Kitchen












July 18

As you look out onto your back courtyard at the three pots full of a variety of tomatoes – as they are just beginning to fill and turn red – the question of how to use them will always come up. I am completely jealous of those folks who do nothing more than pluck one, shine it on a pant leg, then bite in, but that has never quite worked for my own palette. Lately I have been bonding with cherry tomatoes, cut and quartered, and then sautéed along with virtually any greenery, especially brocollini, as I did last night. It adds a burst of 'sunshine,' as Harris puts it above, to anything. When I saw the visual for the Roasted Tomato Tart in My French Kitchen, I knew that I was properly ready...trained...if you will, to create a fully tomato based dish, something that looks akin, at least on surface, to a ratatouille, another bright, lively, garden dish. Attracted first off by the request to peel the tomatoes, then by the need to create a pastry, this is a wonderful two step in the kitchen that we we can see immediately is fun to make and to look at.

The recipe calls for 10-12 tomatoes total, peeled and sliced. Cream fraiche will be part of the topping as will some thyme and dijon mustard. The pastry all of the usual suspects of flour, butter, shortening, eggs. Arranging the tomatoes in a long shuffled line has to be a fun part, soon to find out. We can imagine that after 40 minutes baking that we will have the somewhat unusual aromas of the depth of the pastry and the tangy acid of the tomato lingering together, let cool, cut, still warm, enjoy, and all the while keeping a substantial portion of the mind's eye on the beautifully cottagy little summer hamlet in France where the pictures across the page lead us to. It is here, bathed in sunshine, a cool breeze at the window sill, that we might just, for the first time in a long time, enjoy ourselves behind the kitchen counter with nothing better to do than smell, cut, eat, pick some more tomatoes.