This simple French dish is why summer tomatoes are made

It is easy to launch superlatives with regard to simple summer tomato dishes. Catch me at any time and I could declare that Panzanella is the best thing to do on the arrival of seasonal peak tomatoes. Five minutes later, I will change my air: Gazpacho. No – tuna and spanist tomato salad. Or maybe a Greek salad? Oh, but there is the classic tomato sandwich on white bread with mayonnaise.

Currently, however, my answer is the magnificently exhausted tomato and mustard pie, which means that its list of limited ingredients could imagine. That’s all I want to do this summer with my tomatoes on the farmer market, except that I also want to do all the other things that I have just shaken, and much more too. So take me to my word: this pie is the best recipe for simple summer tomatoes. And also all the others too.

Basically, the recipe is incredibly simple. Any pastry crust is garnished with a generous dijon mud, then juicy red tomato bullets and just enough salt to blackmail them. It could be that, although many recipes add one thing here or there. Many include cheese, often grated Gruyère, as in this recipe, but I saw rounds of fresh goat cheese placed on top. Some give the pie a Provencal touch with stuck black olives strewn among the tomatoes. Herbs are welcome: a pinch dried with Provence herbs, as I call it here; Fresh leaves of fragrant basil scattered on top after the pie came out of the oven; Or everything that could make you happy.

Although the variations are potentially endless, I have a few notes on three specific points: pastry, mustard and salt. Everything else is quite easy to understand for yourself.

Pastry

One of the main arguments for the sale of this pie – alongside its disproportionate delicacy – is how easy it is to do. But it neglects the question of pastry – many would say that making pie or pie dough from zero is not easy, and I would not say exactly (although, with a little practice, it is not a chore). But you don’t need to make your pastry for it. One of the best approaches here is to keep a puff pastry purchased in stores in your freezer. Move it to the refrigerator to defrost, and you can have a ready pie in a few minutes.

If making your own pastry is not a great stop. Shorty pastry, a salted pie crust, is perfect, but keep in mind that you will need a pie pan for that. I know, because – in a less intelligent moment – I tried to use it for a free form cake. It is too short for any free form: it collapses, cracks and melts in a blob when it is left to support without pan.

If you want to take the cake, you are better with a classic pie crust, which can be deployed and folded on itself to form a graceful border that rocks the garnish. Or put a pie crust on a pie plate – really do what you want. This is exactly the kind of There are sections to the other Attitude, which feels exactly in the spirit of this effortless French country pie.

Matters mustard

On paper, a layer of dijon mustard may seem an excessive flavor – pungent, spicy and sharp. He was surely going to dominate the tomatoes and make you grimacted with each bite. I promise you: this is not the case. It is perfect, in a way that I cannot fully explain, except that it anchors juicy and fruity tomatoes with scented terrible acidity.

Some recipes for this pie mix the mustard with the crème fraîche to temper its intensity and add creamy. I was sure I would like to do the same, so I made a mixture of equal parts of the two and I cooked a pie with it. First of all, I must tell you that an equal mixture of Dijon and fresh cream is perhaps one of the most delicious and easiest condiments that I have ever stirred together in a small bowl. I want to eat it on everything.

But, strangely, I didn’t think it was a lot of difference. It was very tasty, but it was not tastier than mustard alone. I don’t think the pie needs it, and I don’t think you need to add the (very minor) effort to buy fresh cream for this recipe. You can if you wish, but I prefer to mack Dijon-Fraiche on almost anything else.

Salt

While developing this recipe, I had another thought: would it help pre-se the tomatoes and let them flow? I thought it would help reduce water and concentrate their flavor for better pie.

In practice, the advantage was so minor, so imperceptible, that I did not include it in the recipe, and I do not think it is necessary to wait an hour while the tomatoes are tasting and flowing before making the pie. Again, you can if you wish – it may be a little better – but I doubt that someone notes it unless you taste side by side, and even then, only if you were telling them.

But what do you know? It is the beauty of this pie. An effortless wave of the hand, a relaxed gesture in the kitchen, and this pie appears like another favorite ventilated among all the other favorites of the easy tomato for this summer and all the others.

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