Ed. note: sit on this bad boy until you can get decent tomatoes, SET A PHONE REMINDER if necessary!

There are few things I find more delightful than the simple tomato. A good tomato, that is. When I lived on my own for two years it became one of my favourite ingredients. It is cheap and also very easy to transform into a delicious meal. This tomato tart is one such recipe.

One of my first encounters with the tart was when I was taken out for lunch by my then-supervisor. I was on the road to doing a full thesis masters on Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park, and this was a treat from her to me. Now the thesis didn’t end up happening but this delightful thing called the tomato tart did. For appetizers we were served small roast tomato tartlets topped with goats’ cheese and thyme. Ah! Delicious! I had become enthralled. The saltiness of the goats’ cheese combined with the sweetness of the roasted tomatoes was something that seemed too simple to be this good. I had to figure out how to make it. After some research I was able to come up with a very simple tomato and olive oil topping and replaced the goats’ cheese with feta, because I’m not made of money.

When I sat down to write this piece I realized how long this particular recipe has been with me. Along with this came the nostalgia of sentimentally recalling the various roles this meal has played at different stages in my life. Not only did my thesis not happen, but it brought along with it a real sense of failure and despair at the time. In looking back, this little creation was one of the positives that came out of that period.

What I always underestimate is the sense of surprise that people get when eating the tart. No one expects much from what is essentially tomatoes and pastry baked in the oven. 

So, it’s impressive as well as easy and cheap to make. I try to get the best tomatoes I can find and prefer not to use supermarket ones, as they are often bland and watery. However, I have used them before, and they make a more than passable dish (But seriously, if you can get some at the market I recommend that!) This is my go to recipe when I have people over for dinner and I can’t really be fussed to actually make dinner. Over the years the only thing that has changed about the recipe is that instead of making tartlets by cutting out individual sections, I lazily just roll out a whole sheet of shop bought pastry.

Now, this recipe and the process of making it over time have made me an overly excited but well meaning fan of the tomato. If you have a moment and a tomato, just take a minute and chop it in half; to me it is simply one of the prettiest everyday things you could ask for. Apart from its aesthetic value, it’s beyond versatile. Over the years I have tweaked the recipe and sometimes cook the tomatoes with some garlic and olive oil in a pan until their skins wrinkle. Then I season them as I do with the tart, replacing the pastry with freshly boiled pasta that I toss into the mix, then adding the feta and some basil or arugula (or baby spinach, if I’m feeling fancy).

Tomato Tart

1 punnet (roughly 250g) small tomatoes (I got the most beautiful tomatoes of all sorts of colours the last time I made this. There was even one that looked like a mini watermelon.)

Olive oil

Salt to season

1 heaped tsp sugar

Thyme

1 sheet puff pastry (thawed)

½ block feta

Preheat oven to 390F. Cut tomatoes in half and drizzle with enough olive to coat each one. Season with salt, sugar and fresh thyme leaves. Mix. They should be glistening now. At this point you could roll out your pastry and place on a baking sheet. I couldn’t be bothered, so I just unroll it as it is. However, on last making this my pastry stuck together and I didn’t have a rolling pin, so I just spread it out with my finger tips—no one will see!

Strew the pastry with the glistening tomatoes.  Top with crumbled feta. Place in preheated oven for twenty minutes or until pastry is puffed, golden and the tomatoes are wrinkly on the outside.

Oh! I almost forgot: allow the tart to cool slightly as the tomatoes are usually hot and will burn your mouth when they first leave the oven!