Pissaladière, part deux
a second version
Taumatte (tomate): This fruit, also known as ‘love apple’ (pomme d’amour), has a pleasant acidic flavor, and is blended into a variety of foods. - Dictionnaire des Sciences Naturelles, 1816 - 1845
This recipe for pissaladière is different than the first version, but both are authentic, both inspired by recipes found in old early-19th century newspapers and cookbooks.
My first attempt at a pissaladière was scrumptious…. Authentic and traditional, made with a bread dough crust, anchovy butter - a type of pissalat niçois, or fish paste - lots of onions cooked down in olive oil, the fat commonly used in the Provence region of France, and black olives, also a local specialty. The dough was perfect, with a slight toothsome give and slightly crispy. The onions were meltingly perfect, almost buttery in texture, and fragrant and sweet. But it missed a bit of provençal oomph.
While the tart was, as I said, quite delicious, it really missed that traditional saltiness and fishiness one would normally find in the dish. I mistakenly bought natural anchovy filets rather than those preserved in salt, so while the fish was tender, it lacked the flavorful kick the preserved ones would have brought to the pissaladière. Same with the olives; I couldn’t find true niçoise olives, the small, purple, salty ones, and I ignored the Greek olives, and bought blander plain black olives instead.
I was determined to correct these slight errors.
This one adds some tomato to the cooking onions, the tomatoes first peeled, seeded, chopped, seasoned, and cooked down in a little olive oil. This is an addition in a recipe published in the October 21, 1938 issue of Le Peuple newspaper. Tomatoes are a grand specialty of Provence and their addition to the tart seemed natural. There are those - Françoise Bernard in Les Recettes Faciles (1965) - places tomato slices on top of the tart before sliding it into the oven to bake.
I found thin, salty anchovy filets, not in the canned fish aisle, as those I used in the first recipe were, but in the refrigerated smoked salmon and dip aisle which sells items for appetizers, so the anchovy butter was much saltier and fishier. I also made a round, tart-shaped pissaladière, using part of the dough to create a trellis on top of the onions. I dotted the black olives in between the strips of dough, alternating with round of small tomatoes.
Pissaladière
This recipe is inspired by the one written up in the October 21, 1938 issue of Le Peuple. This pissaladière would be excellent with a plain pâte brisée or an unsweetened shortcrust pastry. Make a double recipe if you want the trellis strips on top, though that is optional.
Lightly oil the bottom and sides of a regular 10-inch (25 or 26-cm) pie dish (I prefer glass/Pyrex).
Pâte à pain - Bread dough (recipe below)
3 to 4 tablespoons olive oil
1.8 pounds or 28.8 ounces (800 grams) yellow onions, trimmed, peeled, and largely diced
3 medium-sized cloves garlic, peeled and and just mashed
¼ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon dried thyme, more for dusting
Freshly ground black pepper
2 medium tomatoes, peeled, seeded, and coarsely chopped (*see note)
1 tablespoon olive oil + a little salt, pepper, and dried thyme
1 can - 3.5 ounces (100 grams) anchovies with oil; 2.5 ounces (70 grams) anchovies drained - or slightly more; oil reserved - for this recipe I used 2 x 35 grams cans anchovy filets
3 - 4 tablespoons (50 grams) unsalted butter, softened
12 or so black olives, preferably salty niçoise or Greek olives, pitted if possible
*note: Make a slash in the skin of each tomato while you bring a pot of water to the boil (enough water to just cover the tomatoes); drop the tomatoes in the boiling water and leave for just 1 minute. If the skin at the slash isn’t starting to pull back, leave the tomatoes in the boiling water for another minute. Using a slotted spoon, lift the tomatoes out onto a plate and let sit until cool enough to handle. Peel and discard the skin. Slice the tomatoes, remove and discard the liquid seedy part and any hard center core and coarsely chop the tomatoes.
Pâte à pain - Bread dough for pissaladière
2 cups (280 grams) flour for the dough + 1/2 cup (70 grams) for kneading and rolling
1 teaspoon active dried yeast
1 teaspoon salt
¾ cup (175 ml) tepid water
3 tablespoons olive oil
Prepare the bread dough for the crust:
Have either a baking sheet or large mixing bowl ready with about 1 tablespoon of olive oil in the center/bottom in which the dough will rise.
Place the 2 cups (280 grams) flour in a medium or large mixing bowl; make a slight well in the center. Add the dried yeast, the salt, water, and olive oil. Using a wooden spoon, stir well until all of the flour is damp and incorporated into the scraggily dough and all of the ingredients are well blended/dispersed. Scrape out onto a floured work surface (using the extra flour) and knead, adding flour (to the work surface under the dough and dusting the dough itself) a little at a time as you knead, until the dough is no longer sticky and is smooth and elastic; this should take about 5 minutes. Gather the dough into a ball and place either in the bowl or on the baking sheet; roll the dough to evenly and lightly coat it all with olive oil. Cover with plastic wrap (or a clean kitchen cloth) and let rest and rise at room temperature for 2 hours - while you prepare the filling. It should about double in volume.
Prepare the filling (onions and anchovy butter):
Place the 3 tablespoons olive oil in a large sauté pan, skillet, or deep heavy pot and heat over medium heat. Add the onions and mashed garlic cloves and stir so everything is coated with oil.
Stir in the salt, the dried thyme, and several grindings of black pepper. Once the onions start sizzling, lower the heat to medium-low - you want to cook the onions slowly but still hear the sizzling during the whole cooking time - 40 minutes. I lower the heat a bit more and cover the pot for the first 20 minutes, lifting the lid and stirring occasionally, but this isn’t necessary. After the first 20 minutes, remove the lid, raise the heat under the pan just slightly, and continue to cook, stirring often, for an additional 20 minutes.
You do not want the onions to brown, caramelize, or - most importantly, burn - so if they begin to stick (they might towards the end of cooking), lower the heat a bit and stir more often.
While the onions are cooking prepare the tomatoes by first heating a tablespoon of olive oil in a pan over low or medium-low heat until steaming; add the chopped tomatoes, dust with a little salt, pepper, and dried thyme and, stirring, cook for about 10 minutes until all of the water has evaporated and the tomatoes are mostly melted with a slightly creamy texture. Remove from the heat.
After about 30 or 35 minutes of total cooking time, stir in a couple tablespoons of the reserved oil from the anchovies. Taste the onions and add more salt and pepper if you think it needs it.
Add and stir in the cooked tomatoes.
Near the end of cooking, the onions should become a slightly deeper yellow color and become almost creamy.
At the end of the 40 minutes, turn off the heat under the onions and let cool a bit while you roll out the dough and line the pan.
While the onions are cooking, prepare the anchovy butter, by first opening the can(s) of anchovy filets and draining the oil out into a cup or small bowl and reserve. Lift out the anchovies one at a time and, if whole, carefully slide a knife down the center to separate the 2 filets, then lift/scrape out the center bones and discard (the bones). Place the cleaned anchovies in a bowl with the softened butter and, using a fork, turn it into a smooth paste. If the anchovy filets are too tough to purée with a fork, use an immersion blender or small food processor to purée the fish with the butter until smooth. Set aside.
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C) while the onions cool and the dough finishes the rising process.
Place the risen dough on a clean work surface dusted with some of the reserved flour and dust the dough with a little more; lightly knead the dough to deflate then slice off ⅓ of the dough and return it to the bowl.
Roll out the remaining ⅔ of the dough to fit the pie dish, both the bottom and up the sides, making sure to flour both the work surface under the dough and the dough itself as needed to keep the dough from sticking to the surface and the rolling pin to the dough. The dough should not be too thick.
Lightly and carefully roll the round of dough around the rolling pin, lift it up and unroll it carefully onto the pie dish; lift and set the dough into place, trimming off excess dough. Press the dough into the sides of the pie dish and lightly prick the bottom all over.
Spread the anchovy butter evenly over the bottom of the tart, being careful not to stretch or rip the dough and making sure it is spread all the way to the edges. Do the same with the cooked onions/tomatoes. Dust a little more dried thyme over the onions.
Roll out the reserved dough to a round the size of the pie dish; the rolled out round of dough should be thin. Using a pastry or a pizza cutter, slice the round of dough into strips. Using the longest strips, lay 3 strips in one direction on top of the onions, spacing them evenly, slightly overlapping with and pressing into the dough around the edge of the tart; trim off the excess. Using 3 more long strips, do the same in the opposite direction, perpendicular to the first 3 strips. Press the edges of the strips into the dough around the outside of the onions (the bottom dough).
Place a black olive in each space between the strips; you can also choose to place rounds of small appetizer tomatoes in some or all of the spaces.
Place the pissaladière in the preheated oven and bake for 30 - 40 minutes, or until the crust and the strips are baked and a nice golden brown.
Remove from the oven and allow to cool for a few minutes before slicing into wedges and serving.
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Find more summer specialties of Nice and the Provence region of France:
Beautiful column.
As far as the discarded tomato skins, I have a dehydrator and since I peel a lot of tomatoes I am going to dry them and make a tomato powder to use as a garnish for things like caprese.
Excellent recipe.