Who needs pumpkin pie when you’ve got savory squash tart?
Right around now, every food magazine and newspaper in the country is gearing home cooks up for the culinary Super Bowl that is Thanksgiving. You can’t swing a dead cat without encountering some revolutionary turkey brine (chai, anyone?), the secret to stuffing, or the key to the fluffiest mashed potatoes. (I’ll be hopping on the bandwagon in a couple weeks, sharing a few recipes for some slam-dunk snacks and sides for the holiday).
But what about all the other nights of November? You need dinner those nights, too.
Shoulder season, when heirloom tomatoes and persimmons rub shoulders at the market, is an exciting time to be a cook, but it’s a confusing one, too. Will it be hot, or cold? Is it time for salads, or braises? I’ve been in a fallow cooking period lately, waiting for inspiration to hit (in this way, my process for developing a new recipe is a lot like my process for writing a story — a lot of waiting, then off to the races). And one foggy morning last week, on a run through the chilly mist in Golden Gate Park, it did.
I started daydreaming about fall food, about squash and shallots, their natural sweetness coaxed out by roasting them until soft and crispedged. A sweet vegetable needs a salty partner; another half mile down the path and I’d settled on blue cheese, maybe crumbled over the squash and shallots, or maybe tossed together in a salad with chicories.
But by the time I got home I had a new idea, a savory tart with a rich butter crust enclosing an herby custard enriched with crème fraiche and, sunk into it like buried treasure, soft bits of the roasted squash and shallots, and pockets of pungent blue cheese.
Sometimes — often — things don’t turn out like we’d hoped. But sometimes — hallelujah! — they do, and so it was with this tart. No, it’s not the easiest thing you’ll ever make. It requires a crust, and that crust has to be parbaked before you pour in the custard. If you want, you can consider it a dry run for the the pie-making later this month. Or, even better, you can double the ingredients in the crust recipe and make two, socking one away in the freezer for a pecan or pumpkin pie.
I’d make this tart tonight. But you could also save this recipe and trot it out on Thanksgiving, an elegant, thoughtful, seasonally appropriate and outrageously good vegetarian main course. Because let’s be honest — no one wants a turkey-shaped soybean loaf.