Last month we had the pleasure of dining at Alain Passard’s Arpege in Paris and one of our favorite dishes was a delicious fresh tomato tart on a buttery, flaky crust. With tomatoes being in season, we decided to try to recreate this dish for a perfect summer dinner.
Tomato Tart at Arpege
While you can use a pre-packaged puff pastry dough to cut down on the prep time, I highly encourage you to try to make your own! Many of the pre-made doughs use lard rather than butter, which completely changes the flavor and texture of the dough. It does require a bit of time, but is rather simple to make. It only requires three ingredients – flour, butter, and water!
The other key to an amazing tart is the quality of the tomatoes. This is the time to use those beautiful multicolored heirloom tomatoes. The more colors and sizes the prettier the tart! Try to pick tomatoes that are still firm; soft tomatoes will be more difficult to slice properly.
Next, you simply arrange the tart. We like to use a bit of whole grain mustard on the bottom for some extra flavor. Next, we layer the cheese and tomatoes and top with fresh herbs and some salt. So simple! We used feta cheese, but you could easily replace it with goat cheese or ricotta, or even a mixture of all three. We only used about 1/4 cup of cheese, as we still want the tomatoes to be the star of the dish.
We baked the tart for a good 45 minutes to allow the crust to get flaky and golden. Afterwards, we allowed the tart to chill in the fridge and served it with some extra herbs and microgreens on top. The tart can also be served warm, if you prefer.
You can serve this as an appetizer at a party as is, or as a main dish paired with a simple dressed salad. It pairs great with a glass of Champagne or a crisp Pinot Grigio. It’s nowhere near as good at Alain Passard’s but we’ll take it!
Rustic Tomato Tart
Ingredients
Puff Pastry Dough
- 1.25 cups All-purpose flour Sifted
- 1.5 sticks Salted butter Frozen
- 6 tablespoons Ice water
Filling
- 1 tablespoon whole grain dijon mustard
- 1/4 cup feta cheese or other cheese such as goat or ricotta
- 1 pound assorted heirloom tomatoes sliced thick
- 4 sprigs thyme
- 2 sprigs oregano
- 1 pinch sea salt
- microgreens for garnish
Instructions
Puff Pastry Dough
- Add flour to large bowl. Using a grater, grate frozen butter into flour mixture. Gently toss to coat.
- Add water evenly over butter/flour mixture and stir using fork until incorporated.
- Form into a large square and wrap in plastic wrap. Allow to chill for about 30 minutes.
- Remove from refrigerator. Over a floured surface, begin rolling out the dough with a rolling pin, until it forms a large rectangle.
- Arrange dough with a short side nearest you, then fold dough into thirds like a letter: bottom third up and top third down over dough.
- Rewrap and chill another 30 minutes.
- Repeat rolling out, folding, and chilling steps twice more. Then allow to chill for about 1 hour.
Tomato Tart
- Preheat oven to 375F
- On a floured surface, roll the dough out into a circle.
- Press dough firmly into a 8-10 inch tart pan. Trim excess around edges.
- Spread 1 tablespoon of whole grain mustard evenly onto bottom of tart.
- Sprinkle crumbled cheese evenly across bottom of pan.
- Next, evenly spread out the sliced tomatoes. It is best to use tomatoes of varied sizes to help fill in the tart pan as much as possible.
- Sprinkle tart with fresh herbs and a pinch of sea salt.
- Bake at 375F for about 45 minutes, or until crust is a golden brown color.
- Garnish with any remaining fresh herbs and microgreens. Can be served warm or chilled.