Tomato, Celeriac and Emmental tarte - a taste of summer

Last w/end I prepared a couple of tarts, something that I’ve not done for quite some time since it’s just “too easy”….not real cooking, not a real discovery…..yes, stupid to think that “real cooking” only consists of fancy, complicated dishes with an elaborate sauce presented carefully on a large plate !!!

So, a session of “home cooking” produced this magnificent combination of fresh Brittany tomatoes, emmental cheese on a base of celeriac (céleri rave, in French) caramelised in the sautoir. I have to thank my neighbour, Chloé, for giving me the desire to make a tart because when I popped in to see her a few days before she was preparing a tomato and emmental tart (along with another tart – onion and Dijon mustard…..one that I made also but didn’t do very well…tant pis !!). I took her lovely looking tomato tart and simply added some celeriac which I cut into small cubes (a rough mirepoix)…..the result was really tasty and went down very well with my family !!

The steps to follow are,

make short-crust pastry – the usual things…..250g flour, 125g butter, 1 egg yolk, small amount of water (2 tbls perhaps ?), 4g salt – and then keep in fridge whilst preparing the other ingredients

celeriac cut into small cubes and left to caramelise in butter (take out when soft and nicely coloured)

slice tomatoes and grate emmental

roll out pastry and put into tarte circle (I don’t remember what it is called in English !)

line the tarte with the celeriac

cover the celeriac with grated emmental

arrange the tomatoes in a “rosary” (rosace in French)

brush the tomatoes with olive oil and sprinkle poppy seeds across the tomatoes

….and that’s it. Leave in the oven for approx 40 mins at 180°C, remembering to remove the tarte circle for the last 10 minutes of cooking time (to brown the outside of the tart).

And the result ?…..