Savory Tomato Tarte de Dijon

My French family comes from Burgundy, and specifically from Dijon--yes, where the mustard comes from! It's also a great place to taste fine wine, and there are lots of other wonderful reasons to visit. Anyway, this recipe comes from Dijon, and to make it all the more authentic, it calls for Dijon mustard. I know it sounds surprising to put mustard on a savory tomato tart (a lot like a pizza) but trust me, it is delicious. This recipe is so quick and easy--the longest part is slicing the tomatoes!

Unless you find a brand of puff pastry dough that is much larger than the Pillsbury brand I use, the resulting tart is pretty small. I'm including a picture with a magic marker for reference below. This is definitely not a big main course in a meal. Think of it as an appetizer, side, or light lunch for two. If you do find a larger piece of dough to work with, adjust the rest of the ingredients accordingly.

You will need:

1 sheet of mostly defrosted puff pastry dough
a squirt bottle of Dijon mustard*
1 clove of garlic, sliced thinly
1 large tomato, sliced thinly (or 2 small ones)
thyme and pepper
3oz of grated Italian cheese mix, or grated parmesan, or grated swiss

cookie sheet
parchment paper (which is not the same as wax paper--you can bake parchment paper)
nonstick cooking spray
chef's knife
cutting board

A note about defrosting the dough: I defrost mine for 30 minutes. Beware. Overly defrosted dough will become a gooey, unmanageable mess. If you start defrosting it and your husband informs you he just had a protein shake and won't be hungry for at least another hour (as mine did last night), place pieces of parchment paper between the folds of the dough, as well as underneath it, so it can't get stuck to itself or the plate it's on. If you have room in your fridge and it is already defrosted enough, you could also unfold the dough. Just treat it like it's going to stick to itself and anything it touches, because it will.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Spray the cookie sheet with nonstick spray and lay down a sheet of parchment paper. If you already have the dough on a sheet of parchment, just transfer that onto the cookie sheet. The spray keeps the parchment paper in place.

Squirt a spiral of mustard onto the dough. If you're spooning it out, about 3 tablespoons ought to do it. Use the back of a spoon to spread the mustard around. You want the mustard to cover most of the dough in a thin layer. You shouldn't see dough through the mustard, but you also don't want big gobs of it. Evenly space the slices of garlic over the mustard.

Slice the tomatoes as thinly as possible. This is a great recipe for tomatoes that are hard or somewhat unripe inside (you know those lovely red tomatoes that you cut into only to find they are whitish inside). Lay them out in overlapping rows on the tart.

Sprinkle thyme and pepper over everything. I don't add salt--the cheese is salty enough.

Note the marker. Not a big tart.

Cover everything with the grated cheese. Fold the edges of dough over and pinch the corners where the dough overlaps. As I said above, this dough gets very sticky, so it will stick to itself well enough once it's totally defrosted.

Bake for 20 minutes (check on it, though, your oven may be different from mine!). Enjoy!


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* You can, of course, use jarred mustard. The squirt bottle is just more fun.

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If you try this recipe, please post a comment and let me know how it turned out!