This is simple, very popular (when ever I make it, people always ask for the recipe!), and tasty. You really do need to make your own pastry (easy!) though.
I find it best if you make this tart the day before , and serve at room temperature (although also OK straight out of the oven). Great for a relaxed lunch in summer with friends and a glass or two of Chianti Classico, out on the deck with overhanging grape vines. Or outside a villa in Tuscany, overlooking the rolling hills.
Pastry:
- 2 cups plain flour, 125 gms unsalted butter. Mix in a whizzer until it looks a bit like breadcrumbs. Add 2 eggs, one at a time, while keeping the whizzer whizzing. It's ready when it all clumps together. Tip out onto glad wrap, push together into a flat pat, cover completely with the plastic wrap, and leave it in the frig for about an hour.
The Filling:
- Cut about 8 onions (the red ones are best), finely sliced. Add to a large saucepan, with good extra virgin olive oil (about a cup), 2 or 3 cloves garlic finely cut, and cook slowly until the onions caramelise. This might take 3/4 hour. Stir a few times. Maybe add a tablespoon of dark brown sugar, and stir till amalgamated. Let this mixture cool.
- In another saucepan, add 1 or 2 cans of peeled tomatoes and a bottle of Italian tomato sugo. Mix and heat,. Maybe add a spoonful of tomato paste if it looks too runny. Cool.
- Roll out the pastry and place over a 30cm serrated edged, flan case (with removable bottom). Add the caramelised onions, and spread evenly over the pastry base. Add the tomato mixture. Pick a few sprigs of rosemary from the veggie garden, and decorate the tart with rosemary, black olives (halved, with pips removed) and anchovies.
