Eggplant Purée Tart
This Eggplant Purée Tart is from Tarts, by Frederic Anton and Christelle Brua. If you check out their Tomato and Anchovy Tart you will notice a similar aesthetic, which is what drew me to their book and body of work. The recipes are all about using high quality ingredients and letting them shine. The arrangement of ingredients has a minimalistic feel with a striking effect. The book includes sweet dessert tarts but I found their savory tarts to be most unusual and the ones I wanted to highlight. You will also find the likes of an Apple Tart and Blueberry Tart within the pages as well as more unusual offerings such as Chestnut Cream Pastilla, Pink Praline Tart and a very textural Banana Rum Tart that features dark rum, vanilla beans, baby bananas, cinnamon and star anise. There are tarts for all seasons, both sweet and savory.
Excerpted with permission from Tarts
Preparation 2 hours 15 minutes (for the tart dough)
and 15 minutes (for the filling)
Rest 1 hour
Cooking 50 minutes
- 1 recipe Savory Pâte Brisée
- ⅓ cup flour, for rolling out the dough
- 3 eggplants
- 8 cloves garlic, peeled
- 2 teaspoons olive oil
- Fine salt and black pepper
- 1 eggplant
- 5 marinated anchovy fillets
- 10 black olives
- Preheat the oven to 300° F. On a floured work surface, with a rolling pin, roll out the Savory Pâte Brisée to 5 millimeters thick, between ¼- and 8-inch. Place the dough in a floured and buttered tart pan. Crimp the edges. Dock the crust by lightly pricking it all over with a fork. Chill the prepared dough in the refrigerator for 1 hour. Pre-bake this tart base at 300° F for 15 minutes. Set aside to cool.
- Increase the oven temperature to 320° F. Make the eggplant puree. Use the point of a knife to cut slits into the three eggplants for the eggplant purée.
- Slide the cloves of garlic inside. Brush with some of the olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Wrap the eggplants in aluminum foil. Fold the foil like a packet around the eggplant, in the style of a papillotte. Bake at 320° F for 30 minutes.
- Open the foil packets and cut each eggplant in half lengthwise. Remove all of the insides and the garlic clove, discarding the skins. Place the remaining oil, the garlic, and the eggplant flesh in a pan and cook over medium heat until the mixture cooks down to a paste. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
- Cut the eggplant for the topping into thin rounds. Blanch in boiling salted water, then broil them. Make grill marks on the eggplant with a hot iron skewer.
- Cut the anchovy fillets into pieces.
- Bring the oven temperature up to 350° F. Place the eggplant purée, the eggplant rounds and the anchovy fillets into the pre-baked, cooled tart shell.
- Top with the black olives. Bake for 8 minutes. Serve immediately.
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