Erica De Mane

The finished product and the raw ingredients.

Recipe: Tomato Tart with Pecorino and Rosemary

My friend Barbara, of Patron Saints and Holy Cards fame, has a house with a vegetable garden in Delaware County, New York. She grows gigantic, lumpy deep red tomatoes, and also really delicious grape and cherry tomatoes, all from Italian seeds she gets from www.growitalian.com. In mid-September she has a ton of tomatoes. They are a lovely gift. Just when you start feeling sad about summer’s end, out pop all these gorgeous summer tomatoes. She dropped a big bag of them off at my apartment a few days ago. They made me extremely happy. The big ones are varieties called Red Pear and San Marzano Redorta. I’m not sure what the cherries are, but I believe they’re Puglian. Growitalian.com has a slew of Italian tomato varieties and has seeds for every imaginable Italian vegetable and herb. If you’re a garderner and love Italian food, that website is for you.

When I get a bunch of warm-from-the-garden cherry tomatoes, I usually do one of two things. Either I make a burst-cherry tomato sauce for pasta or I make a tomato tart. This time I had enough tomatoes to make both. I love the completeness and tidiness of a savory tart, and it’s always a special offering for friends, since it looks like you put some thought into it—which you did. Cherry tomato tarts can look especially beautiful, with the little globes arranged in rows or circles, all red and glistening. I published a cherry tomato tart recipe in my book The Flavors of Southern Italy; it is really good but really rich, written before my health and diet kick kicked in. It has a sweet buttery crust, cream, ricotta, and lots of cheese. Sounds good, right? I’m trying to forget about it now.

For my new healthier but I hope no less alluring version, I use a classic Italian olive oil crust, which really is perfect for tomatoes, better than butter, I’m now convinced. I marinate the tomatoes briefly in garlic, mustard, and rosemary to enrich their flavor, and I lighten up considerably on the cheese and cream. The flavor is much more tomatoey than my original recipe, deeper, less custardy. I seriously like this one much better. You can serve it as an appetizer, with a glass of Dolcetto. Or serve it as a lunch or light dinner, alongside an arugula salad.

If you’d like to make a pasta with burst tomato sauce, all you need to do is get a large sauté pan really hot over high heat, add a generous amount of olive oil and the cherry tomatoes (about 2 ½-3 pints for a pound of pasta), and sear them, shaking the pan around a fair amount, until they just start to burst and brown slightly, about 5 minutes or so. Once they’ve begun to burst and let off some juice, you can add garlic, salt, hot chilies, whatever you like (a few chopped anchovies are good). Add a hit of white wine to loosen up all the caramelized tomato on the bottom of the pan, and finish with a handful of fresh herbs and a drizzle of fresh olive oil. Toss with pasta. That’s it.

For the tart, you’ll want to have on hand a nine-inch tart pan with a removable bottom, ideally a pan with smooth, not fluted, sides. Or you can use a tart ring.

Tomato Tart with Pecorino and Rosemary

(Serves 4 as a lunch or light dinner, or 8 as an appetizer)

For the crust:

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 sprigs rosemary, the leaves well chopped
Salt
¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil
¼ cup water
1 large egg

For the filling:

About 20-25 cherry tomatoes, cut in half
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1 large garlic clove, peeled and smashed with the side of a knife
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 sprigs rosemary, the leaves well chopped
1 teaspoon sugar
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
½ cup grated young Pecorino Toscano cheese
¼ cup heavy cream
1 large egg

In a large bowl, mix the flour with the rosemary and a little salt. In a small bowl, stir the egg, olive oil, and water together, and pour the mixture over the flour. Stir to blend everything, and then dump the resulting dough out onto a work surface. Knead it very briefly, just until it holds together in a more or less smooth ball. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap, and let it rest, unrefrigerated, for about an hour.

Place the tomatoes in a bowl. Add the mustard, olive oil, garlic, rosemary, and sugar. Season with salt and black pepper, and toss well. Let the tomatoes sit at room temperature, tossing them around a few times, while the dough is resting.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Coat your tart pan with a little olive oil. Roll out the dough, and drape it into the tart pan, cutting off any overhang. Sprinkle half the cheese into the tart shell. Line the tart with the tomatoes, in slightly overlapping circles. Save the juice left from the tomato marinade. Sprinkle the tomatoes with a little extra salt and black pepper.

Whisk together the remaining cheese, cream, egg, and about a tablespoon of the tomato marinade liquid. Season with a little salt and black pepper, and pour evenly over the tomatoes. Bake until browned and set, about 35 to 40 minutes.