La Pissaladière Express
(pee-sah-lah-dyehr ex-press)
L'Apéro Dînatoire: The Casual Friday Gathering
If pizza and French onion soup had a kid on the Mediterranean coast, it would be the pissaladière. While purists demand a two-hour dough proof, any busy modern French mother is grabbing a sheet of puff pastry to get this onto the table by Friday evening. The only rule you cannot break is how you treat the onions. They must melt, never fry. We replicate the ancient, impossible-to-find umami paste known as pissalat by melting anchovies directly into the hot onion jam. Do this right, keep the tomatoes far away, and you have just mastered the undisputed king of the French apéro.
Before you start
Leave the root intact when slicing.
When peeling and cutting the onions, leaving the root end attached holds the onion together and makes slicing significantly easier and much more uniform.
Ingredients
- all-butter puff pastry14 oz
- yellow onions2 1/2 lb
- extra virgin olive oil3 tbsp
- fresh thyme2 sprig
- dried bay leaf1 large
- granulated sugar1 tsp
- anchovy fillets packed in olive oil2 oz
- Kalamata olives1/2 cup
- black pepper1/2 tsp
Method
- 01
Sweat the onions under a lid.
Place a large, heavy-bottomed pot over medium-low heat and add the olive oil, sliced onions, thyme, bay leaf, and sugar. Toss everything to coat, then cover the pot with a lid and let it sweat for 10 minutes to trap the steam and soften the onions rapidly.
- 02
Melt the onions into a jam.
Remove the lid and drop the heat to low. Cook for another 15 to 20 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the onions are translucent and meltingly soft. They should look like a golden compote, absolutely not browned or crispy.
- 03
Dissolve the anchovies into the hot onions.
When the onions are jammy, pull four to five anchovy fillets from the tin and drop them directly into the pot. Stir constantly for two to three minutes until the hot oil and heat cause the anchovies to literally dissolve into the mixture, infusing it with deep umami. Remove from heat, discard the bay leaf and thyme stems, season heavily with black pepper, and let cool slightly.
- 04
Prepare the pastry base.
Preheat your oven to 400°F. Unroll the thawed puff pastry onto a parchment-lined baking sheet. Score a one-inch border lightly around the perimeter with a knife, being careful not to cut all the way through, then take a fork and generously prick the entire inside rectangle so the base doesn't puff up and become soggy.
- 05
Assemble and bake.
Spread the warm onion jam evenly over the pricked center of the pastry. Arrange the remaining anchovy fillets in a rustic crisscross pattern on top of the onions, placing a halved olive in the center of each diamond. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes until the edges of the pastry are deeply golden and puffed.
- 06
Cool before serving.
Let the tart cool on a wire rack for at least 15 minutes. It is best eaten warm or at room temperature, which gives the rich flavors time to settle and makes it significantly easier to slice into squares for your guests.
Notes
Keep the tomatoes away.
Adding tomatoes transforms this dish from a traditional Niçoise pissaladière into a Mentonnaise pichade. It's delicious, but a French grandmother will absolutely correct you.
Make ahead magic.
The onion and anchovy compote can be made up to three days in advance and kept in the fridge, reducing your active prep time on a Friday night to almost nothing.
From Cook French in America.