Milwaukee Irish Fest and Late Summer Disappearing Roasted Tomato Tart
john barry
The kids love these hats and gloves. I actually want one of these hats for myself!
This weekend is Milwaukee Irish Fest! I have a love-hate relationship with Milwaukee Irish Fest due to Paul’s OBSESSION with it. He made us schedule our wedding and shorten our honeymoon so that we could be back in time for the fest. As we speak, my brother-in-law has a moving truck in the driveway full of all of the stuff they need for their booth. My sister-in-law is staying in Milwaukee so she can work with her brothers all weekend. It truly is a family affair. Despite all of the hard work, long nights, and, in previous years, long drives back-and-forth from Chicago to Milwaukee, it’s Paul’s favorite weekend of the year. He will be in the store this weekend but at the fest each evening after he closes so be on the lookout for him if you go! I’m happy that we are so much closer now and I’m glad the festival is back.
This one’s definitely my child.
Unlike my relationship with the fest, I unequivocally LOVE this time of year. As a sun worshipper, late August is probably the best time of year for me, weather wise. But it’s also bittersweet because the school-year is approaching and everything is about to become more scheduled, the days will be shorter, the cold will come. I try to set these things aside and just soak in the last of the summer. As part of that, I usually go crazy with summer produce, canning and freezing and trying to preserve a tiny bit of summer that can be pulled out of the pantry in the dead of winter. I also try to make my favorite summer foods before it’s too late.
And do I love any food more than a savory tart? I love that you can make them ahead. I love that they always taste best at room temperature. I love that they transcend seasons and “meal times” and are good any time. I love that they travel well. I love that they aren’t fussy, you can cut off a wedge and eat them out of hand. I love that they are easy to make. I love that they don’t need meat to be delicious. I could go on and on. In late summer, I also love tomatoes. People say they get sick of them, and I guess I get it, when you have a garden and they all come at once or all come for a long time (I’m looking at you, people with longer growing seasons) you can get inundated with them. How much caprese salad can a person eat? Well, I can eat a lot actually. But, I also love to take some of that bounty and roast it. I slow-roast cherry and grape tomatoes this time of year and freeze them to toss with pasta or throw into soup once it starts getting cold outside.
The other day, I married two of my favorite things, roasted tomatoes and savory tarts. As expected, I was in heaven. Admittedly, the recipe is sort of involved, the kind of recipe I usually don’t like, too many components, sub-recipes (ugh), too time consuming. I get it. But, none of the elements require a lot of hands-on time, and when you make most of them ahead, it only takes a few minutes to throw together and bake. I had the pastry dough and caramelized onions in the freezer, so that part was done. And I roasted the tomatoes a few days before so I was able to roll out the dough, top it, chill it and pop it in the oven, get on a conference call and pull it out to cool before my next meeting.
All I could think about during that second meeting was lunch. The smell of this tart cooling in my kitchen was highly distracting. By the time the meeting was over all I wanted to do was eat. It's no wonder I didn’t take a photo of my masterpiece, eh hem, the tart. It was SO good. The next day, I had another slice for lunch. An hour later, it occurred to me that I hadn’t taken a photo of the tart since it came out of the oven. But when I went back to the kitchen, the rest of the tart was gone. The kids had eaten lunch already and left with the babysitter. No one was even home! I searched high and low, wondering if I accidentally put it in the freezer or the pantry or somewhere it didn’t belong. Nope. It had literally vanished into thin air. I was less worried about the fact that this could mean someone was in my house unbeknownst to me, than the fact that the rest of the tart was gone. If I had criminal leanings, I would definitely steal a tomato tart over the tv so I knew this thief and I would get along just fine.
When Paul got home from the store, he brought the remaining piece of the tart with him. I was so happy to see him it. As it turned out, when Emmett was “working” at the store that morning, Paul asked him to bring him some lunch after he got home. So Emmett brought him the tart when the kids left the house with the babysitter. Mystery solved. But the fact that two people can almost finish this tart in just two days is evidence that it does, in fact, disappear. I know it’s asking a lot, all of the steps, the roasting, the dough etc. but you should really give it a go. The roasted tomatoes are good on their own so if you have a lot, I highly suggest doubling or tripling the amount. They freeze well. I throw a few over a bed of arugula and eat them with creamy burrata and a drizzle of olive oil for a fancy yet super-quick working-from-home lunch. They taste like the last, most special part of summer.
The tart definitely doesn’t need the ham. Next time I will leave well enough alone!
I will also add even more basil. I added caramelized onions that I had in the freezer . In the instructions, I streamline this process by adding the onion/shallots to the roasted tomato mixture.
This is what the roasted tomatoes should look like, still soft, not too shriveled or dry but not juicy like raw ones either.
It’s a galette, I don’t think it’s supposed to look perfect. Personally, I never try to make it look uniform which starts with the fact that I don’t worry much about the edges when I roll it out, but if you are more of a perfectionist, you can roll it into an actual circle and crimp it all over in a more symmetric way.
Don’t forget the egg wash! It gives your crust color.
Crust
2 cups All-Purpose Flour
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
16 tablespoons unsalted butter, cold
1/2 cup sour cream, cold
1 egg (for egg wash)
Tomatoes
2 lbs fresh tomatoes
1 small onion/2-3 shallots (optional)
¼ cup olive oil
1 tbsp combination of fresh thyme and rosemary
Salt to taste
Filling
1-2 cups roasted tomatoes
1 cup shredded cheese (white cheddar, gouda, whatever you like)
⅓ cup sour cream or creme fraiche
¼ cup caramelized onion or shallot
2 tbsp or more chopped fresh basil
2-3 slices of ham (optional)
Roast the tomatoes (and onions/shallots)
Preheat oven to 250 F
Cut tomatoes into ¼ inch thick slides or halves if you are using cherry or grape tomatoes.
Cut shallots, if using in thin slices
Toss tomatoes and onions/shallots (if using) in salt, olive oil and fresh thyme and rosemary
Spread tomato mixture on a large baking sheet and roast for 2-3 hours until there is no longer liquid pooling on the baking sheet but tomatoes are still soft to the touch.
Make the crust
Whisk together the flour, salt, and baking powder. Add the butter, working it in to make a coarse/crumbly mixture. Leave most of the butter in large, pea-sized pieces.
Add the sour cream, and stir with a wooden spoon until it starts to come together.
Dump it out on a floured work surface and knead until you can form it into a ball.
Shape the ball into more of a square and roll it out until it’s about half an inch thick. Then fold it in three, like a letter.
Flip the dough over, turn it 90 degrees and roll it out again into a large rectangle. Fold it in three again.
Fold your letter of dough in half once more so it is basically a rectangle and chill for at least 30 minutes before using.
Assemble and bake
Heat oven to 375 F and put oven rack on lower middle half of the oven
Roll out dough into a rough circle
Sprinkle with cheese (and pieces of ham if using) leaving a 1 inch border all around where you will fold over the edges later
Add basil to sour cream and spread over cheese
Top with tomato mixture
Sprinkle with more cheese
Fold up edges of dough to form a border of crust
Whisk egg in a bowl and brush onto crust
Put tart in the freezer for 10-15 minutes to resolidify the butter in the crust. This prevents it from melting, which would allow the water in the butter to interact with the gluten in the flour, resulting in a less-flaky, more bread-like dough
Bake for 35-45 minutes until crust is brown and cooked through - use a spatula to lift galette and take a peek at the bottom of your crust to make sure it’s golden before removing from the oven.
Be warned. This will literally disappear.