Heirloom Tomato Tart

A summery rainbow of tomatoes in a crisp crust. # 227: Heirloom Tomato Tart

In the great tomato debate, are you Team Fruit or Team Veggie? Botanically speaking, they’re fruit, but it’s hard to not think of them as a vegetable.

Does their savory side make them an honorary vegetable? Digging a tiny bit deeper, it seems that vegetables are basically any edible part of a plant. Disregarding the botanical definition of the names, we’ve typically placed sweeter produce in the fruit category and savory or bitter produce in the vegetable category.

There was even a court case that made it all the way to the Supreme Court in 1893 that officially labeled tomatoes as vegetables for the purposes of getting higher import taxes! Nix vs. Hedden made it official that the tomato’s colloquial designation won over the botanical definition.

Can you imagine being a Supreme Court justice and having to keep a straight face during the tomato debate?

Trader Joe’s has heirloom tomatoes!

Not the same vibe as a farmers’ market, but pretty yummy if I do say so myself.

Salt them while you make your crust to help draw out as much water as possible. It was really hard to not just eat the slices at this point…

I went rogue and decided to use whole wheat flour for the tart crust. I was able to substitute it 1-1 which surprised me! I had recently tried making half whole wheat pasta and it required a lot of extra water to get the dough to hold together.

Ta-da! Perfect consistency – workable but not sticky.

Parchment paper is truly magical. I always feel a tiny bit guilty using two whole sheets just for rolling dough out, but I got to reuse both pieces during the recipe so felt like they weren’t wasted.

Looks like a ginger snap! To avoid a soggy bottom, blind bake it under some pie weights or beans. There’s gonna be a lot of liquid from the tomatoes!

Deb Perelman is a genius – sneak some extra flavor in with a layer of dijon mustard on the freshly-baked crust.

Then some cheese (another TJs fave – cheddar gruyere!) and an herbaceous paste made with parsley and basil. It was basically pesto minus the blended cheese and nuts.