Our local CSA delivered an abundance of tomatoes this past week. There are all sorts of varieties of great organic heirloom tomatoes. Of course, I had just happened to buy three or four tomatoes earlier in the week without thinking that I might get some, so my stash of tomatoes overfloweth.
I have been using this opportunity to make some great new dishes using the tomatoes. The other day, I made a ratatouille (you don’t know how long it took me to learn to spell that one), which the kids loved because of the movie. My favorite tomato dish, though was the one I made last night, a tomato pie.
First I started with a butter crust, since I rarely carry shortening in the house. The recipe I used is really simple, just flour, sugar and about two sticks of unsalted butter. I only needed one crust for this pie, so I divided the dough and froze half for a future use. The dough came out very sweet. It is important to bake the crust for about 10 minutes before filling.
Next, I adapted a recipe I found here for the actual tomato pie.
I used less than half a white (sweet) onion) and layered in in rings at the bottom of the crust. I then chopped only three tomatoes, since the ones I had were quite large. I chopped instead of using slices in order to make the pie easier to eat. It is very important to drain the tomatoes very, very well. Otherwise you may wind up with a soggy crust. I also baked the pie for about 30 minutes instead of 20 and used the lower rack. This allowed for nice even browning of the crust and melting of the top.
The tomato pie is very rich and savory-sweet, so use small slices of it as a side dish or on its own for lunch.
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