Heirloom Tomato Pesto Tart
End of Summer Tomatoes
One of the best things about summer produce is tomatoes, and this year's crop was no exception, tantalizing us with abundant flavor and color. Donald returned to our local purveyor, Julia's Fruit Stand, this week to shop for tomatoes as I had in mind to share a fresh tomato tart nestled in ricotta. Vibrant colors, juicy tomatoes, and light pastry seemed like a nice way to end the summer.
Plans changed when Donald reminded me that not a single ingredient in such a recipe is available at American Olive Farmer. His suggestion was that we bake a tart using the pesto recipe we shared with you at the beginning of summer (using garlic instead of garlic scapes, of course).
The tart was indeed delicious delivering the juicy tomatoes and light pastry I had hoped for. We enjoyed two slices each as an appetizer, and I can imagine making and serving tartlets for a dinner party. This recipe would also make a nice side dish for a light lunch or dinner.
Thoughts on Puff Pastry
Here's a note for all of you bakers out there. We've shared a few recipes with you using store bought puff pastry, however, want to point out that unless you have access to a premium brand like Dufour puff pastry, be warned. Most brands of frozen puff pastry in grocery stores are made with hydrogenated palm and seed oils (not butter!), too much salt, HFCS (high fructose corn syrup!) and other other generally unappealing inclusions. These industrial ingredients lack the aroma and flavor of good butter and leave one with an unpleasant feeling of heaviness despite the flaky dough.
As a former pastry chef, Donald has some experience making puff pastry, however, doing so is a lot of work, and it doesn't seem right to expect you will want to take it on.
We don't have easy access to Dufour all butter pastry, and don't want to use a "grocery brand", however, there is another solution--Donald suggests you more experienced bakers might modify your puff pastry skills by making a "quick" puff pastry, instead!
Rather than starting with a big block of butter enveloped in dough and pushing through to complete five turns with refrigerated rests between each turn, you can make your dough with about 60% of the butter well incorporated into the flour, then add the balance of the butter in big chunks. Complete the turns more simply--as few as 3 of them. Although this still takes effort, it is less work, and the resulting pastry still quite flaky as shown in the images above and below.
