Food Notes: 8/19
Tomato tarts, fromage fort, fancy butter, ice cream theft, and more
It’s tomato season, and I made a tomato tart. We’ve been growing some tomatoes in the garden, though not nearly enough yet to top this tart. Luckily, our neighbor shared some of hers.
The tomato tart above is was actually a knock-off of a tomato tart my wife made last week. Hers was, in turn, a knock-off of an asparagus tart recipe from Melissa Clark.
Cookbook author Melissa Clark’s Dinner In French has a prominent place on our cookbook shelf. The cover photo of the book features a puff pastry tart topped with crème fraiche, goat cheese, and asparagus. We’ve made it before, and it inspired us. to make one with tomato.
This seems like just as good a moment as any to insert my fun anecdote about how Melissa Clark taught me how to make Fromage Fort at a house party in Brooklyn. We were both standing around the kitchen island enjoying the creamy, cheesy spread. She had made Fromage Fort and brought it to the party, though I didn’t know this fact when I praised it. She then explained what it was: old cheese. As someone with a large collection of old cheese myself, I was intrigued.
If you’re unfamiliar, Fromage Fort is made by combining pieces of old cheese with cream, garlic, herbs, and a bit of wine. Mix it all together to produce a spreadable delight. Clark’s actual recipe is also in Dinner In French, but its the kind of thing you can just sort of make up along the way once you understand the flavors you’re going for.
Anyway, Clark’s asparagus tart was on our mind when we decided to adapt the recipe for tomatoes. We had some fresh tomatoes left from the Orleans Farmer’s market, plus a quart from our neighbor. The grape tomatoes I planted earlier this year were just starting to arrive, and weren’t nearly enough to top a big puff pastry.
I procured the puff pastry from the Stop & Shop, but since we’re still on Cape Cod, crème fraiche proved about as hard to find here as gochujang. We settled on sour cream as a replacement..
My wife rolled out this first tomato tart, smeared on some sour cream and then arranged a colorful selection of tomatoes along with chunks of goat cheese.
Puff pastry is oddly sold in packs of two. It’s kind of like buying a 8-pack of hot dogs and a 10-pack of buns. Luckily we had more tomatoes, and I even was able to pick a few from my stringy vines.
What we hadn’t thought of though was that we had used up all the sour cream and there wasn’t all that much goat cheese left either. Luckily, we had some old cheese. It wasn’t that old; I had a pint of ricotta from the night before and swapped that in for the sour cream. I was a bit more aggressive rolling my puff pastry out, and this resulted in slightly less puff but slightly more surface area.
The ricotta worked well, if heavy and wet, and even though there wasn’t much goat cheese, it brought enough of a tang to offset the sweet creaminess of the ricotta. I also topped mine with garlic powder and a salt and pepper. Next time I might drop a bit of lemon juice on there just to add some acid
Knock-off Tomato Tart of a Tomato Tart Knocking-off an Asparagus Tart
Ingredients
1 Puff Pastry Sheet
Fresh garden tomatoes
Most of a pint of ricotta cheese
2 to 4 ounces of goat cheese
Dash of garlic powder
Instructions
Defrost the puff pastry
Lay some flour down on a baking sheet
Roll out the puff pastry gently
Top with a layer of ricotta cheese
Add sliced tomatoes, slice side up
Crumble goat cheese on top of the tart
Add a dash of garlic powder, salt and pepper
Bake for 30-40 minutes at 425 (don’t burn the puff pastry)
The Latest
Accusations of a Stolen Ice Cream Recipe
Jeni Britton claims the New York Times copied her recipe for creamy, homemade ice cream. The recipe in question uses a secret ingredient *cream cheese* to make homemade ice cream as smooth and creamy as manufactured ice cream. Jeni is the founder of the trendy, and expensive, luxury Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams.
Cookbooks!
Nina Moskowitz at Bon Appétit asks why so many cookbook titles have exclamation points. These are the questions we should be asking!
Radioactive Shrimp Writes Own Headline
Imported shrimp from Indonesia could be contaminated with radiation, warns the FDA. The shrimp, sold at Walmart, was contaminated with Cesium 137, the bi-product of nuclear reactors and weapons testing.
A Better Grilled Cheese?
CNET claims the best way to make a grill cheese is using an air fryer, but immediately undermines their story by leading with a photo of a melt.
The Instant Noodle Diet
Ashley Fike at Vice asks whether its a good or bad idea to live off only instant noodles. TLDR: bad idea.
Butter Is Better Now
Joy Saha at Salon looks at the rise of ultra-luxury butter. Butter started out as a luxury for the rich, and most of Europe taxed it heavily. Industrial agriculture turned it into a cheap commodity, but the trade off was lower fat content and less flavor. That’s all changed once more with influencers and recipes and food enthusiasts pushing higher quality—and more expensive—butter options.
Around the Stack
Brad Thomas Parsons visits FINI Patio Bar, where one of Brooklyn’s best slice shops becomes a fancy tavern experience.
A Wine Lover In Italy takes a look at a Barbaresco producer you probably haven’t tasted.
Midwest Mexican looks at the price journalists pay when they face layoffs.
Devin Kate Pope gets texts from her CSA.