A.P.'s Food Porn: Cheese and Tomato Tart

7 fresh or frozen filo pastry sheets, thawed

1/4 cup melted butter

2 tablespoons Dijon mustard

2 cups grated Swiss cheese (recommended Emmenthal)

8 large ripe tomatoes, sliced 1/4-inch thick

Coarse salt

Freshly ground black pepper

1 tablespoon fresh thyme leaves

12 fresh basil leaves, for garnish

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

On a large baking sheet, place 1 sheet filo pastry and brush with melted butter, repeat, stacking them on top of each other as you build your pie crust. You may want to stagger the sheets a little bit to ensure that the baking sheet is well covered allowing a little bit of an edge.

On the top layer, brush on the mustard. Sprinkle the cheese evenly over the pastry to ensure even coverage. Lay the tomato slices generously, all over, overlapping, as needed. Season with coarse salt and ground black pepper. Sprinkle the thyme leaves on top.

Bake in the oven until the pastry is crisped and browned at the edges, about 25 minutes.

Add another sprinkling of coarse salt, and cut the tart into 8 squares. Garnish with fresh basil leaves. Delicious when served hot, warm, or at room temperature*.

~Source: Chuck Hughes, Cooking Channel

Patti’s Notes:

I also used farm fresh tomatoes and put the slices on paper towels (sprinkled with a little salt) to draw out some moisture prior to assembling. I lined the baking sheet with parchment paper. I used Stone Ground Dijon. I’m a cheese lover but Swiss is not my favorite so I used half Swiss and half Shredded Four Cheese Blend. I skipped the second round of salt since I had salted the tomatoes from the get go.

*These were best right out of the oven, not as good at room temp. Next time I will serve them on my pizza stone to keep them warm for a longer period of time.

Easy Meter:

Filo Dough is not my favorite thing to work with. It is very fragile and ALWAYS breaks apart. Since the sheets are layered in this recipe it doesn’t really matter if they look like a patchwork quilt. You won’t see the seams.

Health-o-Meter: According to the nutritional value on the box, 5 sheets of filo has 1 gram of fat and 2 grams of sugar. There are 7 sheets in the recipe and Chuck says it “serves 8” so you can do the math. It’s on the low end for a carb product. The calories are in the cheesy deliciousness.