constellation cherry tomato and sweet pepper puff pastry tart
The rainbow medley of cherry tomatoes paired with thinly sliced sweet peppers and lemon zest makes this tart the perfect way to put some leftover puff pastry and favorite salad ingredients to use in a new way. The quantities listed here assume you have about 8 ounces of puff pastry dough, but you can use any puff pastry recipe you want — just scale the rest of the ingredients up or down so you can cover the surface of the dough! The bake time and temp are the same regardless.
Ingredients
- 8 oz puff pastry (its ok if you have more or less than this!)
- 10-12 NatureSweet ConstellationTM tomatoes
- 3 mini sweet peppers (one red, one orange, one yellow)
- 1 clove garlic
- 1 small shallot
- 3 tablespoon olive oil
- zest of ½ a lemon
- salt & pepper
- finely grated parmesan cheese
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 357°F with a rack in the middle setting.
- Slice the top and tip off of the three mini sweet peppers. Use your fingers to remove the seeds and ribs from inside. Then slice the peppers into thin rounds.
- Slice the tomatoes into thin rings. If you imagine a line drawn from the stem end to the tip of the tomato, you should be slicing across that line.
- Set the tomatoes and peppers aside.
- In a small bowl combine olive oil, garlic, and shallot with a pinch of salt and pepper.
- Take your pastry dough out of the fridge. Roll it out into a square or circle approximately ¼" thick. I like to use a pastry wheel or pizza cutter to give myself straight edges, but you do you.
- Transfer the pastry to a parchment or silicone mat lined baking sheet and dock it all over with a fork. This lets steam escape so the puff pastry doesn't bubble up awkwardly when it bakes.
- Brush the pastry dough all over with the olive oil mixture, all the way to the edges.
- Arrange the peppers and tomatoes in rows, overlapping each other as needed, across the surface of the dough, leaving about ¼" margin all the way around.
- Use a microplane to sprinkle lemon zest down across the tart, followed by a generous dusting of parmesan cheese.
- Bake at 375°F for 10 minutes, then rotate the sheet pan and bake for another 10-15 minutes, until the edges of the tart are a deep golden brown with lots of flaky layers.
- Remove from the oven and let cool on a wire rack. Slice into wedges or squares and serve immediately.
RECIPE NOTES
- Keep the puff pastry chilled right up until you're ready to roll it out. If it gets too warm, the butter in it will melt and you won't get flaky layers.
- If you're making a smaller version, start checking for doneness after about 15 minutes. If you're making a bigger version, you might need to let it go an extra 5 minutes in the oven.