I made a green tomato tarte tatin at the very end of summer, about a month ago, with big, plump green tomatoes from our garden. (We had so many this year, and so few nice ripe red ones!) It was surprisingly delicious – the tartness of the tomatoes offset by the touch of caramelized brown sugar. I made another last night with the very last of the green tomatoes – small, hard, very green tomatoes, and I have to tell you, it was almost too tart, this tart! No amount of sugar or cooking would sweeten these little tomatoes. I’m going to tell you how I made it, because it was so tasty, but I’d use the bigger, slightly softer tomatoes, that are more likely to succumb to your sweetening advances.

Cooking with green tomatoes signals that bittersweet time of year when summer fades into autumn, so we’ll let Booker T’s Summertime melt into Jackie Mittoo’s beautiful Autumn Sounds.

Dough…

I use a richer dough for this, to make it more substantial and to balance the tartness of the tomatoes. I start with 1 1/2 cups flour, and I add salt and 1/2 t. baking powder. Then I grate in 6 T. of frozen butter, and mix it into a fine crumb. At this point I add one egg, and stir that in. You’ll need less ice water to pull this althogether – maybe 1/4 cup. Knead it very slightly, and draw it into a ball. Wrap and store in the fridge until you’re ready to use it.

Cut the tomatoes into large slices, maybe 1/2 to 1 inch across. Dice a large shallot very finely.

In a large saucepan, over medium heat, melt a few tablespoons of butter and a tablespoon of brown sugar. Add the tomatoes and shallots, and stir very gently, letting them get soft and begin to brown. I add a teaspoon or so of thyme. When the sugar and butter start to thicken and reduce, add a tablespoon of balsamic vinegar, to deglaze the pan. Cook until the liquid is quite thick and syrupy, and the tomatoes and shallots are soft and slightly brown.

At this point, if you had a saucepan that could go in the oven, you would arrange the tomato slices prettily in the pan you sauteed them in. If, like me, you don’t have such a pan, you put them in a pie plate, trying to make them look pretty if you have time, or pretending you really want them to be in a wild and messy jumble if you don’t.

Roll out the dough to be slightly larger than your pan. It doesn’t need to be too thin, about 1/4 – 1/3 inch is fine.

set it over the tomatoes, and tuck the edges in all around.

Bake at 400 for about 1/2 hour, until the crust is brown and the tomato-y juices start to seep out the edges.

Turn it out onto a plate, slice, and eat!