Cathy Katin-Grazzini
Cathy's Kitchen Prescription LLC
www.cathyskitchenprescription.com
 
Rustic Tarte à la Tomate et Moutarde
 
For me, this scrumptious, sun-kissed tomato tarte from Provençe epitomizes summer, when garden tomatoes are at their peak. These days, many bakers commonly use commercial puff-pastry.  In a bygone era, French farmwives may have used pâte brisée, a butter-rich short crust. My preference, though, is to bake a rustic tarte with a white whole wheat flour-based sourdough for its flavor and digestibility, and ditch all that inflammatory, caloric butter and oil. If you don’t bake whole grain sourdough, any whole wheat bread dough is fine, even whole wheat pizza dough. The key to this tarte is Dijon mustard, which marries beautifully with tomatoes. Perfect summer picnic fare, Rustic Tarte Provençal à la Tomate et Moutarde makes a gorgeous appetizer, side, or snack.
 
Helpful tools for this dish: offset spatula, pizza peel, baking stone (optional)
 
Prep 20 minutes
Bake 55 minutes
Makes a 12 by 18-inch tart
 
1 pound whole wheat dough, preferably sourdough
A dusting of white or red whole wheat flour 
3 heaping tablespoon your favorite Dijon mustard
2 heaping tablespoons tomato paste (optional but recommended if your tomatoes are not very fragrant)
½ cup whole wheat crumbs
About 8 sun-ripened beefsteak tomatoes, cut in ¼-inch slices
3 tablespoons nutritional yeast
2 to 3 tablespoons dried herbes de Provençe or Italian mixed herbs
Generous grinds of black pepper
Drizzle of shiro (white) miso paste, diluted with water
 
Preheat oven to 425°F/400°F convection and insert a large baking stone if you have one.
Tear off parchment paper to line a 12 by 18-inch cookie sheet with a few inches overhang. (Hint: Crunching up the paper before distending helps parchment paper adhere to the pan’s contours.)
For higher gluten doughs, use your fingers to spread the bread dough thinly to fill the pan, leaving a rim along the dough’s perimeter to hold the tomatoes and its cooking juices. I used a white whole wheat sourdough, with a lower gluten level. To spread it, I used an offset spatula to create a thin layer with a mounded rim.
Sprinkle the surface of the dough lightly with whole wheat flour.
If using tomato paste, mix it now with the Dijon mustard. Use an offset spatula or the back of a tablespoon to spread the mustard evenly over the dough’s surface, excluding the raised dough rim.
Distribute the whole wheat breadcrumbs on top of the mustard layer.
Now lay down the tomato slices, overlapping each slice to fill up the tart.
Sprinkle the dried herbs over the tomatoes and grind black pepper generously over the tarte.
Lastly, dilute shiro miso paste with water and mix well, using a ratio of 1:1 miso to water. Dot the top or drizzle the tarte lightly with the diluted miso.
Bake the tart on the middle oven shelf for 45 minutes.  At this point, the crust and tomatoes should begin to darken in spots.
Remove from the oven and raise the oven temp to 450°F/425°F convection. Slide the tarte from the hot cookie sheet onto a cooling rack. Wait a few minutes for the juices to congeal before using an offset spatula to loosen the bottom of the tart from the parchment paper.  Retain the parchment for the next step.
Use a pizza peel or rimless baking sheet to transfer the tart to the hot oven, onto the baking stone, if using, or directly onto the oven rack. Cover with the parchment sheet to prevent the tarte from over-darkening and bake for 10 minutes to crisp up the bottom of the tarte.
Remove the tarte with the peel and transfer it to a cooling rack.
Wait until the tarte’s juices congeal before using a pizza wheel or sharp knife to cut into pieces. Serve warm or a room temp.