Delicious, Easy Tomatoes

Of all the places I never thought I'd find a delicious recipe, Glamour was probably pretty close to the top of the list. I mean, it's not a terrible magazine, but it's not exactly Better Homes and Gardens, you know? And yet there it was, in their August 2010 issue: a recipe for a tomato tart, provided by the authors of Canal House Cooking, Melissa Hamilton and Christopher Hirsheimer. And I have to say, the recipe is not only super-easy to follow, but it also makes for an extremely delicious side item or appetizer.

The recipe reads thus:

1 sheet puff pastry, defrosted

2-3 tomatoes, cored and sliced

2-3 sprigs fresh thyme

Extra-virgin olive oil

Pepper

Sea salt

1. Preheat oven to 375F. Lay the sheet of puff pastry out on a parchment-paper-lined baking sheet. Using a fork, prick the dough all over to prevent it from puffing up during baking.

2. Arrange the tomatoes on the pastry in a single layer (crowding or overlapping the tomatoes will make the puff pastry soggy). Strip the sprigs of thyme, scattering the leaves over the tomatoes. Drizzle the tart with a couple of tablespoons olive oil and season with pepper.

3. Bake the tart until the pastry is crisp and deeply browned on the bottom and around the edges, 30 to 40 minutes. Season the tart with salt.

I have a few notes to add. First, when they say prick the dough all over, they really mean it, because you can poke it about a hundred times and still have a lot of puffiness, although that's not necessarily a bad thing, but puffiness does make storing the tart in the refrigerator a problem. Second, I used dried thyme, and it turned out just fine. Third, take it easy on the salt. 

The end product looks more or less like this:

I paired it with green beans amandine, garlic chicken, and those baked peaches I mentioned earlier this week. All in all, the dinner was a success, and I made the tart again about a week and a half later, since I liked it so much. How would you serve this tart?

-Cate-