Heirloom Tomato and Gruyère Tart

Heirloom tomatoes over melting Gruyère and crisp shortcrust, baked until the flavours become one thing, and it arrives at the table looking like you spent the morning on it.

Some dishes you serve, and some dishes you carry in. This is the second kind. Heirloom tomatoes in reds and yellows, in different shapes and sizes, laid over pastry so they look like something from a good bakery window rather than something you took out of a freezer. It goes down in the middle of the table and people ask about it before anybody has tasted it.

It is a tart about its ingredients. Heirloom tomatoes, not ordinary ones, in different varieties and colours and sizes. Real Gruyère, the firm Swiss cheese that goes nutty and deep as it melts. Golden shallots rather than onions, sweeter and gentler. Dijon mustard. Thyme, sage and rosemary. Good olive oil, salt and pepper. Six or seven things, all of them chosen rather than settled for.

What makes it worth eating is what they do to each other in the oven. The tomatoes give up their sugars and soften, the Gruyère melts down into the pastry and browns at the edges, the shallots go sweet, the herbs release their oils into the oil, and the Dijon runs through all of it with a sharp savoury edge that keeps the sweetness in check. By the time it comes out you are not tasting tomato and cheese and mustard. You are tasting one thing, and it is not a thing you can get from any of them on their own.

So it looks like an afternoon's work and tastes like considerably more than that, and it needs nothing from you but a hot oven and a knife. You are welcome to let everybody draw their own conclusions.