Tomato pie
plus bonus tomato martini 🍅🍸
Tomato Pie is a somewhat-new-to-me summer classic from the American South.
When I saw it on saveur.com, I wanted to try immediately. I referenced a few recipes and came up with this one, with 2 lbs of fresh summer tomatoes (!), scallions, grated cheeses (gruyere and marble), mayonnaise, and Greek yogurt, all tucked into a flakey, buttery pie crust. If that doesn’t speak to you, we can not be friends.
Just kidding! I actually expect some people to be on the fence about this one. Warm mayo and cooked tomatoes admittedly sound a bit questionable on paper. But think of more like a baked spinach-artichoke dip, if spinach-artichoke dip had a tomato cousin, sort of?? Or a derivative of a good ol’ tomato sandwich which we all know is best with mayo.
“The tomato pie is a southern sleeper—beloved of those who know it, largely unfamiliar outside the region.” — Sam Worley for Epicurious.com
Since tomatoes are so watery, there are two crucial steps in the recipe:
Tomatoes are salted and strained at least 1 hour to draw out liquid.
Blind baking the pie crust to protect it from getting soggy.
Don’t skip these steps. A related tip is that it’s important to let the pie fully set after it comes out of the oven, 40-45 minutes, before cutting into wedges to serve. Otherwise the filling will ooze and puddle out.
Tip: Keep the strained tomato liquid to make yourself a glorious tomato martini! Let it separate overnight (in a glass measuring cup so you can see). Without disturbing the natural separation, slowly pour out just the clear-ish liquid at the top to use.
The pie dough should be made the day before to ideally rest overnight. When dealing with homemade pie pastry, there are multiple chilling / cooling steps involved so make note of these steps to properly time things out.
Alternatively, buy a lovely pie crust from the store if you prefer to skip all that. In that case, the recipe is pretty quick once the tomatoes have strained.
Bubbling hot from the oven…this is your reward:
And this to wash it down:
For the tomato martini, stir with ice:
3 oz gin
2 oz tomato water
splash of dry vermouth
Strain into chilled glass. Garnish with cherry tomato, lemon twist, olives, etc.
If you love a savoury cocktail like I do, you will enjoy this! The tomato liquid is so tasty. In fact, don’t bother separating it and use as is, for the full tomato flavour. It will have a lovely red hue instead of being clear. Cheers to the weekend!
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Tomato Pie
Recipe adapted from a combination of savingdessert.com, saveur.com, and tastesbetterfromscratch.com. Pie dough recipe from Salt Fat Acid Heat book. Blind-baking instructions from The Four & Twenty Blackbird Pie Book.
Prep time: 1 hr 30 minutes | Bake time: 1 hr 20 minutes | Passive time for cooling, chilling, resting: 5 hrs 45 mins | Total: 8 hrs 35
Serves 6-8
INGREDIENTS
For the pie crust:
2½ C (340g) all-purpose flour
1 tbsp sugar
½ tsp kosher salt (increase to 1 tsp for Diamond Crystal brand)
½ lb (16 tbsp) chilled unsalted butter, cut into ½” cubes
1 tsp white vinegar
About ½ C ice water (prep a little extra in case it’s needed)
For straining the tomatoes:
2 lbs (900g) ripe roma or plum tomatoes (any low moisture tomatoes)
1 tsp kosher salt
For the Tomato Pie:
2 C (225g) grated cheeses – use a mixture such as gruyere, cheddar and/or mozzarella
¾ C mayonnaise (can sub ¼ cup with plain Greek yogurt)
2 scallions, thinly sliced (about ½ cup)
2 tbsp grated parmesan cheese
Salt and pepper to taste
SPECIAL EQUIPMENT
Stand mixer (can substitute food processor using short pulses)
9” pie plate
Pie weights or dry beans for blind-baking
METHOD
Make pie dough (requires 2 hours 20 mins chilling): Place flour, sugar and salt in a small bowl and freeze for 20 minutes. Add vinegar to water. Freeze the water and chopped butter. Place stand mixer bowl and paddle attachment in the fridge. Transfer flour mixture into stand mixer bowl and turn on lowest speed. Add frozen cubed butter, a few pieces at a time, until butter is broken into small pieces no smaller than the size of peas. Continuing on low speed, slowly stream in cold vinegar water until dough barely holds together with some shaggy bits. Ensure there are no dry bits in the bottom of the bowl. Grab a handful of dough and squeeze hard. If it holds together or breaks only into a few chunks, it’s done. Otherwise drizzle a bit more water. Turn bowl contents onto a large piece of plastic wrap. Use the ends to gather it into a ball. Wrap tightly and cut into two. Wrap and press into discs. Chill 2 hours up to overnight. (Note: only 1 dough will be used. Freeze the other dough up to a month).
Prepare/strain tomatoes (requires 1 hour at room temp): Take one tomato and thinly cut cross-wise into ⅛” slices. Lay them on a tray between paper towels to blot off moisture. Remove paper towels and chill in the fridge. Core and cut remaining tomatoes into halves, scrape out seeds and chop halves into ½” cubes. Place chopped tomatoes in a fine-mesh colander set over a bowl to catch liquid. Toss gently with 1 teaspoon of salt and let sit at room temperature for 1 hour.
Roll out and blind bake pie crust (40 mins chill + 60 mins cool): Take one dough disc out to rest at room temperature 5 to 10 minutes. On a lightly floured surface, roll to 13” diameter circle, about ⅛” thick. Transfer onto 9” pie plate and crimp edges as desired. Wrap well and chill at least 30 minutes. Dock the dough by pricking all over bottom and sides 20 times. Rewrap and place in the freezer at least 10 minutes. Put oven rack to bottom position and place a baking sheet on it. Preheat to 425°F. Remove plastic and tightly double wrap in two pieces of foil large enough to cover the whole crust. Pour in pie weights/dry beans. Bake on top of the preheated baking sheet for 20 minutes or whenever edges are set but not browned. Remove weights and foil. Bake 3 minutes uncovered. Let cool completely, about an hour.
Prepare cheese mixture: In a bowl, mix together grated cheeses, mayonnaise and Greek yogurt. Season to taste with a little salt and pepper (I suggest tasting a piece of tomato to assess saltiness and taking that into account).
Once pie crust is cooled, move oven rack to middle position. Preheat oven to 350°F.
Assemble pie: Layer in cooled crust in this order: tomatoes, scallions, cheese mixture. Sprinkle parmesan on top. Arrange reserved sliced tomatoes on top. Bake 50 minutes or whenever filling is bubbly and lightly golden, and crust is golden brown. Tent with foil if needed near the end to avoid over-browning the crust. Cool at least 45 minutes before cutting into wedges to serve. Enjoy!
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Eat well and be well,
Sonia x
I’ve had tomato 🍅 pie from a French Canadian cook. Delicious 😋 nice recipe, Sonia 🙏🏻💛✨