I. Love. Tomatoes.
ILOVETOMATOES!
Since they can be such a pain in the ass to grow, this time of the year, where I can go out every morning and bring in pounds of these most-pleasing fruits, provides some of my most joyful moments.
Just cutting up and eating tomatoes is my favorite way to do it, but this comes in as a close second. Tomatoes meet pie in a luscious symphony. For me, baking works great in the summer; my window AC's are so ineffective at cooling my kitchen that I have no trouble saying, "Fuck it, let's crank it up!" But even if you've got central air, this pie'll make it well worth turning on the oven.
Pâte Brisée
First you gotta make the crust. You can buy one, but they're not as good, centswise they're many times more expensive, and it's not hard to make your own. Some sources claim it's hard, some say to freeze your flour and your butter and to put ice in the water, but there's no need. As long as the butter doesn't melt, you're golden.
1.25 C flour
1 stick of butter
1 tsp. salt
1 T chopped herbs if you have them
~.25 C cold water
Put the flour, salt, and herbs in a bowl. Cut the butter into cubes, and dump into the flour. Then I use my hands to massage the butter into the flour. You're looking for the texture of clumpy sand, an even mixture of buttery flour grains. Don't massage it enough for the butter to melt, just enough to get the mixture combined.
Work in a little cold water until the mixture comes together a bit. At this point you're looking for it to be, still, more crumbly than smooth. Then dump it in your pie plate and punch it out into place. And that's what I do, punch and press, so as to not waste wax paper and to not have a rolling pin to wash. When it's nice and crust shaped, pop it in the fridge until you're ready to bake.
The Filling
It's a few steps to get the tomatoes and other elements prepped, but well worth it. Don't sweat exact measurements. Here's what you'll need:
Enough tomatoes to fit your pie plate
1 medium onion
5 cloves garlic
olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt, pepper
a few T chopped basil, if you have it
2-3 T cornstarch
1. Put on a pot of water to boil so you can blanch the tomatoes, and turn your oven up to 350 F.
2. While the water heats, dice your onion and garlic. Put some olive oil in a small pan, and once it's hot sauté the onions 'til translucent. Then add the garlic, 1-2 tsp. salt, and lots of fresh ground pepper. In a few minutes deglaze the pan with 2-or-so T of balsamic vinegar, and while that reduces chop your basil. Turn off the heat, stir in the basil, and transfer this mixture to a bowl (and hang onto that pan 'cause you'll be able to whip up a quick, delicious barbeque sauce in it).
3. By now your water may be boiling, so a few at a time boil your tomatoes for a minute and then immerse in a bowl of cold water. This will allow you to remove the skins, which you should do next. Cut out the spot where the stem meets the fruit of each tom, and then into a separate bowl squish out the seeded juicy sections of each tomato. If you don't remove the juice, your pie will likely be a lamentable, soupy mess. Reserve this juice to make that barbeque sauce I mentioned. And break the tomato flesh into large chunks and add to the onion mixture.
4. Sprinkle on 2-3 T of cornstarch. For a 9" pie plate, you won't want to use any additional lest the pie set too firmly.
5. Mix it up until the cornstarch is evenly distributed, then evenly distribute the filling in your crust!
6. And bake for 35 minutes at 350 F. As the pie is getting done you'll begin to smell the butteriness of the crust, and the cornstarch will no longer be evidently white.
7. Pull out your pie and have a grand old time eating it.
