Pink of Perfection

I wish you could have seen me the day I made this tart. I felt like I was auditioning for a Martha Stewart Living picnic feature, but with glaring (and decidedly un-Martha) Sarah-isms: my tupperware was leaking, the napkins didn’t match, and I forgot the salad dressing. While Martha may have you feeling inadequate if you don’t print out templates to label everyone’s mason jar lemonade glass, with me as your guide, you will feel like the Queen of Togetherness if you just remember the cutlery. Perhaps it is only my way of justifying my own inadequacies, but I find the thrown-together, fly-by-night approach less precious and infinitely more charming.

Salad dressing and damp mismatched napkins aside, you can’t take away the raw materials I had to my advantage for this evening picnic: a community garden lush with hosta, roses, and vegetables, a small wooden gazebo to sit under, and at dusk, the brightest lightning bugs I’ve ever seen. Wedges of this rich tart still warm from the oven and Lillet spritzers weren’t too shabby either. And for dessert, Lisa brought a pint of blueberries and the lightest macaroons I’ve ever tasted (like Samoas for grown-ups, I said). Tuesday nights really don’t get much better.

I’ve been wanting to make pissaladière, a Provencal onion tart, for awhile, but it wasn’t until my Grand Diplôme Book 8 lesson on savory tarts popped up that I knew the hour was nigh. Even the anchovy-phobic might be able to appreciate the counterpart the little fishes play to the sweet pile of thyme-scented caramelized onions underneath them. Later on in the summer, I think this would make a great picnic on a very hot day with hard-boiled eggs and a sliced tomato salad.

Here’s hoping you all have a blissful, relaxing weekend perhaps including your inaugural glass of rosé for the season (I think I just might!).

Pissaladière
from Bon Appetit

for crust
1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) chilled unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons (or more) water

for filling
3 tablespoons olive oil
2 1/2 pounds onions, thinly sliced (about 8 cups)
3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 small bay leaf
1 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme
1 tablespoon drained capers

20 Niçois olives
16 anchovy fillets

First, make the crust: Mix flour and salt in a food processor. Add butter and oil. Pulse mixture until it resembles coarse meal. Add water, 1 tablespoon at a time, until moist clumps form. Gather dough into ball; flatten into disk. Wrap in plastic and chill at least 2 hours.

Now, make the filling: Heat oil in heavy large skillet over medium-low heat. Add onions, garlic, bay leaf and thyme, and stir to blend. Cover and cook until onions are very tender, stirring occasionally, about 45 minutes. Uncover and sauté until most liquid evaporates and onions are golden, about 10 minutes longer. Stir in capers. Season mixture with salt and pepper. Cool completely;* discard bay leaf. (Dough and filling can be prepared 1 day ahead. Keep dough chilled. Cover and chill filling. Let dough soften slightly at room temperature before rolling out.)

Preheat oven to 425°F. Lightly oil large baking sheet. Roll out dough on floured surface to 11-inch round. Transfer dough to prepared sheet. Crimp edges of dough to form stand-up border. Spread filling evenly over dough. Arrange olives and anchovies decoratively atop filling.

Bake pissaladière until crust is crisp and golden, about 30 minutes. Transfer to platter and serve.

*I was in racing against the clock and couldn’t be bothered to let the mixture cool completely. The end result didn’t seem to suffer for my haste.

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