Wednesday, August 30, 2006

Tomato-Leek Tart


Everyone's doing it, the tomato tart. But how can I resist? This is classic late summer food. I don't follow a recipe, just work with what's around, but I might want to remember this version, because it worked out particularly well. I roasted some excellent local cherry tomatoes and plum tomatoes in the oven along with two leeks. No spicing but salt at that point. The next day I made the cornmeal crust from Nick Malgieri's How to Bake (3/4 cup each white flour and cornmeal, 1 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp baking powder, mix, use food processor to cut in 6T butter, then bind together with one beaten egg and chill). I lined the pan with the crust, brushed the crust with beaten egg white (helps keep the crust from getting soggy), threw it in the freezer for ten minutes, then baked it blind for about 10-15, while I prepared the filling. I had about half a package of cream cheese to use up, so that went into the food processor, then two eggs and some milk. Maybe 1/2 cup? And lots of thyme. Poured this into the partly-baked crust, lay the leeks on top and the tomatoes on top of that, and baked until the crust was browned and the filling set. I used some more of the Gray's Grist Mill cornmeal, which made the crust actually taste like corn, and of course roasting the tomatoes concentrated their flavor, so the result was very nice. I would like to try a corn on corn tart before the summer is out - cornmeal crust and fresh corn filling, but I'm not sure about the compliementary flavor. Bacon? Can't go wrong with bacon... Posted by Picasa

6 comments:

Mrs. M. said...

What open temp did you use for the blind baking?

thanks.

Anonymous said...

Looks delicious. And it looks good in that square tart pan, too. Just so happens I got me one of those recently...

Mrs. M. said...

...and how big/deep was your pan? This tart looks incredibly good and I want to make a tomato/zucchini version this weekend.

Pyewacket said...

Yulinka:
I think I blindbaked at 350. The tart pan is a standard shallow one - maybe an inch deep?

Sara Zoe Patterson said...

I've put tart pan on my christmas wish list - but while there is corn, tomatoes, and leeks in the fridge right now, any idea what i could use as a stand-in?

Pyewacket said...

Well, you could just make a custard and include the roasted vegetables, or you could make a quiche in a regular pie pan. Or you could do one of my stand-by favorites for using up odd vegetables - the savory bread pudding. Roast the vegetables, add to dry bread cubes soaked in custard and bake in a bain-marie
(cheese optional).

Can't really go wrong with tomatoes, corn and leeks, particularly if you roast the tomatoes.