Serves: 4
Throughout late summer and early autumn tomatoes are at their best. However, you can make this galette at any time of the year as the fruits are slow-cooked in the oven to intensify their flavour. This means that a rather sad, wintery tomato will actually taste of something. Cooking the tomatoes also dries them out a bit which means they release less liquid over the pastry. You can prepare the pastry and tomatoes up to a day in advance.
Ingredients
- For the pastry
- 160g plain flour, plus extra for rolling
- ¼ teaspoon fine salt
- ½ teaspoon dried oregano
- 150g cold unsalted butter, cut into small cubes
- 85g sour cream
- For the galette
- 950g vine-ripened tomatoes (I like the Pink Temptation variety)
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 tablespoon fine semolina
- 1 egg yolk
- To serve shredded basil leaves
Method
- For the pastry, put the flour, salt and oregano in a mixing bowl and stir. Add the butter and rub into the flour to create a crumble-like mixture, i.e. don’t worry about too many lumps of butter. Add the sour cream and bring together to form a smoothish dough. Press out slightly and wrap in cling film. Refrigerate for 1 hour (or overnight-see intro).
- Heat the oven to 170˚c, fan oven 150˚c, mark 3. Slice the tomatoes horizontally, across their middles and place in one layer in a roasting tin. Season with a little salt and ground black pepper and drizzle with the oil. Cook in the oven for 1 ½ hours, until shrunken slightly but still juicy.
- Remove the pastry from the fridge and leave at room temperature for about 10 minutes. Sprinkle about 2 tablespoons flour and the semolina over a large, non-stick baking sheet. If you don’t have one large enough you can use a large sheet of baking parchment and slide this onto a smaller baking sheet once you have formed the galette.
- Put the pastry in the centre and roll out to a circle about 32cm diameter. Arrange the tomatoes in a circle, leaving a margin of about 3-4cm around the edge. Fold in the sides of the pastry. Chill for 30 minutes.
- Heat the oven to 200˚c, fan oven 180˚c, mark 6. Brush the edges of the pastry with the egg yolk. Bake in the oven for about 30-35 minutes until golden brown. Scatter the basil over the tart just before serving.
