This recipe comes from my old musings that I used to post on Facebook (August 1, 2021) – under the moniker of a Girl and her Tomato Pie. Which, of course, comes with it’s own long story that I won’t get into now… but what is important is this crostata (Italian term) which could just as easily go by then name of a galette (French term) – which is to say pastry and yumminess in a savory appetizer or meal if you add a nice salad or something similar.
I can’t even begin to take any credit for this recipe – it goes to the queen of long island – Ms. Ina Garten. This recipe is fantastic. It was creamy and dreamy and full of summer fresh tomatoes and super duper easy. What else do you need to know? You should know your family and friends will think you and it are fanc-ey! You probably could take more time with the folding over and making your crostata a lil more ’rounder’ than I did – and clearly you should chop your basil smaller but the yumminess won’t change that much but the pictures *may* be prettier ! (To my credit – I had the largest, most beautiful summer basil leaves and it seemed a sin to chop them into lil itty bitty pieces…) But I guarantee you – your friends and family will eat this up VERY happily any which way! #KeepingItReal
The inspiration was that my farmer (CSA share) delivered 2 bags of amazingly beautiful and huge heirloom tomatoes and I knew it had to be a pie or crostata or galette for apps / dinner!
I made very few changes to the recipe – and recommend you do the same! High level overview of the process :
- Make the pastry. Some salt, some flour, and a stick of butter. (recipe to follow). put in the fridge. Zip this up in your food processor – or use your pasty cutter – but it’s quick and easy – and while you are at it – make it a double !
- Saute some leeks and fresh thyme in a bunch more butter. (theme here ?)
- Cut your lucious heirloom tomatoes thick / chop some fresh herbs (chives AND basil). Did you hear me say fresh herbs ? Yes, when you get lucious heirloom tomatoes you also need to procure fresh basil, fresh thyme and fresh chives.
- Have some goat cheese nice and cold and on the ready.
- Roll out your pastry – move to parchment, build crostata as follows: leeks / goat cheese, tomatoes. BAKE.
- Top with fresh herbs and serve.
The original recipe as posted on FoodNetwork.com can be found here.
Tomato, Leek and Goat Cheese Crostata (er eghm, galette?)
Equipment
- Food Processor used to make the pastry
Ingredients
Make the Pastry in your food processor
- 1/2 C All Purpose Flour
- 1/2 C Pastry Flour I used wheat…cause that's what I had
- 1/2 tsp Salt
- 1 stick Unsalted Butter right out of the fridge
- 3 Tbl Water ice cold
Crostata Fixins
- 4 C Leeks White and pale green portions only (~4 leeks)
- 4 Tbl Butter
- 1 tsp Thyme Minced, Get Fresh Thyme !!!
- 1 Pound Heirloom Tomatoes
- 4 oz Goat Cheese
- 1 Egg
- 1 Tbl Milk Can use water if you have no milk!
- 1 Tbl Basil Fresh Basil! Minced
- 1 Tbl Chives Fresh Chives! Minced
- Salt and Pepper to taste!
- Olive oil Ina stresses "Good" olive oil!
Instructions
- Make the pastry. Place the flour, salt, and cold butter into the food processor and pulse till butter is in small pea sized pieces. Dribble in the ice cold water – and pulse till the mixture just comes together.
- Dump pastry dough onto the counter and press it together into a pile, if you've made a double cut into two half piles. Flatten the pastry – smoosh it together – into a (round!) disk and then wrap in plastic wrap and place in the fridge at least one hour – can do a day or two ahead if needed. Note – probably would save you time rolling it out later if you spent a bit of effort making the disk as round as possible before putting into the fridge. Re-seeing these pics, makes me understand how my crostata got so wonky when I rolled it out! #KeepingItReal
- Trim off the dark green part and root end of the leeks. Set aside the dark green parts for a different recipe or compost.
- Clean the leeks carefully ! Leeks are notorious for having a LOT of dirt inside them based on how they grow. Leeks capture dirt inside their layers as they push up and out of the ground. Looking at this picture of a leek – see how the leek center looks with an oblong growth pattern. Cut down the middle – along the long side of the oblong growth when cutting the leek in half lengthwise. Using this picture as a guide – it's basically cutting right to left. Cutting this way will make the washing of each of the layers easier. You can basically peel back each layer under running water and ensure you don't have any sand or dirt still imbedded in your leek. Finally, chop the leeks into half moons. Alternately, you could chop the leek (dirt and all) and then carefully rinse / wash in a colander letting all the dirt fall to the bottom and spin dry.
- Set the oven to bake at 450 degrees
- Saute the leeks in the butter with the thyme. Add S&P. Ina says to cook about 8 minutes over medium high – till the leeks are tender and beginning to brown.
- While leeks are cooking, slice the tomatoes into 3/8 inch slices. Ina says to use only the beautiful inner pieces. I say, who are you feeding (e.g. how fancy do you need to be?) and can you hide the less beautiful pieces on the bottom? Salt and Pepper the tomatoes and drizzle a little EVOO and set aside.
- Roll out the pastry to a 11 inch circle. I love to use my handy dandy silicone pastry roller template which was a game changer for me! (I really have no excuse for things not to be round anymore!)
- Place rolled out pastry onto parchment and get out your sheet pan. Ina says to invert your jelly roll pan – and cook on the backside. (That sounded a bit too risky for clumsy ol' me….) Alternately if you have a real cookie sheet (no jelly roll sides) then that would work too. Or if you are clumsy like me, you can cook on the jelly roll pan as normal.
- Build the crostata: Spread leeks on the bottom of the pastry – leaving 1.5 inch border. Crumble goat cheese over the leeks. Place the tomatoes over the cheese – and Ina says – overlap slightly as tomatoes will shrink when cooked. (That's a GREAT tip!) Flip the edges over the top and crimp a bit. Use the egg wash to brush the pastry edges. Bake for 25 – 30 min until the crostata is nice and brown and smells like you can't wait another minute to eat it…. ha. But you must – allow it to cool 5 minutes minimally and let it set. Sprinkle on the fresh herbs you chopped (basil and chives) and a little large flake salt if you have any.
- Serve to your friends and family while warm, if you can.
