Heirloom Tomato Tart

This is my attempt at recreating the tart we had at the amazing Otium LA. It is a beautiful, and absolutely delicious addition to any table. Even the staunch tomato haters in my family asked for seconds!

Jump to Recipe

My husband and I love watching cooking shows on Netflix, almost (but not quite) as much as we enjoy trying new restaurants. A while back we watched Final Table and decided we wanted to visit Tim Hollingsworth’s restaurant Otium in LA. Then there was a pandemic and the world ground to a halt. Once things opened back up again we made a special trip down to give the restaurant a try. It was absolutely amazing and I highly recommend it to anyone in the LA area.

We started with his incredible heirloom tomato tart. It took some convincing to get my husband to order it as he is a staunchly avowed hater of tomatoes, but he gamely agreed. Not surprisingly, he loved it.

When we got home, I started a low grade craving for it. As cravings do, it built and built until I decided to try my hand at making one. I hadn’t taken a picture of it at the restaurant, so I had to go from memory and the brief description on the menu. Tart crust, onion jam, burrata, tomato. I struck gold finding a recipe Chef Hollingsworth had shared in a news story for a fig tart with onion jam, so I had that as a jumping off point.

So there’s your long backstory…time to jump in and get tart making!

I love this recipe because you can make all of the components beforehand and then assemble right before eating. The tomatoes and onion jam can stay in the fridge overnight, as can the tart dough. Until you get to assembly, it doesn’t really matter which order you make things in, but here is how I did it.

Start by marinating the tomatoes so that they get at least an hour in the fridge to soak up all the goodness.

You really want to use good quality heirloom tomatoes for this. They are the star of the show and grainy, gritty, unripe tomatoes just won’t do.

In a glass pitcher (I used my larger pyrex measuring cup), whisk together the balsamic vinegar, olive oil, allulose (you can use sugar or another sugar free sweetener here if you’d prefer) and black pepper. Salt to taste.

Slice up the tomatoes.

In a medium bowl (preferably with a lid), place a layer of tomatoes. Drizzle some of the marinade over it (whisking beforehand to remix in the sweetener and spices). Repeat that process until all the tomatoes are in and have been drizzled with marinade.

Cover and place in fridge to marinate for at least an hour (I prepped mine in the morning and they sat all day before assembling the tart for dinner). Gently shake the bowl occasionally to make sure the tomatoes are evenly exposed to the marinade.

Now start the crust. In the bowl of a food processor, place flour, salt and cubed, cold (cold as can be, even slightly frozen is ok) butter. Pulse until it becomes a course meal.

Add water (this needs to be ice cold, I fill a cup with ice then add water and use that to spoon in my tbsps) and pulse continually until a dough ball forms. If you’ve got the right amount of water, this should happen fairly quickly. If it isn’t coming together, add more water 1 tbsp at a time.

Lay a sheet of plastic wrap on the counter. Place dough ball on it and flatten with your palm until it’s a disk like this:

Wrap it up in the plastic wrap and place in fridge for at least 30 minutes, or up to overnight.

Now get to work on the onion jam.

Slice up onions and place in a large stock pot (non-stick works well here).

Pour in water, cover and cook on medium heat, stirring occasionally until the water is gone. A good way to test this is to swipe the bottom of the pan with your spoon. If liquid fills in quickly, then they need to cook longer. The image on the left is not ready, the image on the right is ready. This will take a bit of time. For me it was around 20 minutes. Different stoves cook in different ways though, so keep an eye on it.

Now add the allulose (you can use regular granulated sugar here, but no other sugar substitute than allulose as it is the only one that doesn’t recrystallize on cooling), sherry vinegar and honey. Stir well and continue to cook again until all the liquid is gone and it reaches the consistency of jam. Here is what you want:

Put the finished jam in a lidded container and place in fridge to cool. It’ll take at least an hour.

Now it’s time to cook the crust.

Remove your crust from the fridge and roll into a 10 inch round. I do this using plastic wrap on both sides of the dough rather than rolling it out on flour. It is sooooo much easier and when you are done, you simply remove the top layer of plastic wrap, pick up the whole shebang from the bottom piece of plastic wrap and flip into the pan!

Place crust in a 10 inch springform pan and poke with a fork to keep the crust from puffing up in the oven.

As you can see, it doesn’t have to perfectly fit in the pan. No one will notice if your crust isn’t a perfect circle.

Bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes, until browned. Let the crust sit in the pan on the counter for 30 mins to cool. After that, place it on a plate until you are ready to assemble the tart.

When you are ready to assemble, slice your burrata into even pieces.

With the tart crust set up on the serving plate, spread an even layer of the onion jam.

Place the slices of burrata over the jam.

Then add your layers of marinated tomatoes. I have to say, the one at Otium was an absolute work of art. I consider mine a little more “homestyle”. Pretty, but in a less refined way. 🙂

Finish with a healthy grinding of pepper and some flaky salt.

There you have it! A thing of beauty that will be devoured almost before you can snap a picture!