Rustic tart is a fitting farewell to tomato season
It’s late in tomato season, and if you haven’t used your homegrown or farmers market tomatoes to make a galette yet, now’s the time. The idea of this rustic tomato tart is simple: Slice tomatoes, season them, pile them onto flaky dough, fold up the dough’s edges, and bake until the crust is golden and crisp.
It’s a fantasticway to showcase the sweetness and flavor of ripe tomatoes. But tomatoes contain a lot ofwater, andwater and crisp pastry crust are mortal enemies. In many cases, the crust of the galette gets so soggy that you can’t cut a clean slice. And not only the texture suffers— the extrawater also dulls the fresh flavor.
We developed a crust thatwas delicate and sturdy, butwe knewwe’d have to do something to extract some liquid from the tomatoes before putting them into that crust. Slicing and salting the tomatoes and letting them drain in a colanderwas a great solution; itwas quicker than roasting, taking just 30 minutes, and allowed the tomatoes to retain more of their fresh flavor.
Speaking of flavor, we decided to add cheese to the mix. We sprinkled meltyGruyere right onto the dough before layering the tomato slices on top, andwe sprinkled Parmesan over the assembled galette. The cheeses addedwelcome richness and also preserved the dough’s crisp texture; the Gruyere helped waterproof the dough on the bottom while the wisps of Parmesan soaked up any extra moisture on top.
And for a gentle kick and extra brightness, we spread some mustard onto the raw crust, before the grated Gruyere.