Foodiva's Kitchen: French Fridays with Dorie - Pissaladière

Friday, October 21, 2011

French Fridays with Dorie - Pissaladière


I made this at the last minute as the thought of pizza or pissaladière, as the French say, didn't quite appeal to me on a Friday when we were supposed to hone in on our French cooking skills. The odds were stacked against this dish coming into being - I had no anchovies in my kitchen, nor did I have black olives (or any olives, for that matter). You know me by now, I wasn't going to go out shopping for any extra ingredients to comply with a recipe....if I could use whatever I had at home, I would. In this case, I did.



So for this week's French Fridays recipe, I managed to rustle up a pissaladière, a specialty from Nice in the South of France. Essentially what it is is a caramelized onion tart with black olives and anchovies, spread on a thin pizza-like dough. At this point, I shall dispense of the pizza idea, as I feel like a better Francophile calling pissaladière a 'tart'.

Dorie in her cookbook, Around My French Table, mentioned that the name of this tart comes from "pissala", a condiment made with pureed anchovies, thyme and bay leaves, mixed into caramelized onions and spread on the tart before baking. Since I didn't use any anchovies on mine, I did wonder if it should be renamed something else....

Brushing that bothersome thought aside, I went looking around the kitchen for some anchovy-like substitutes and voila! I found some tuna preserved in brine and salmon I cured at home (said with confidence now, thanks to several goes at making Dorie's 'Salmon in a Jar' recipe!). The tuna was mixed into the caramelized onions while the salmon strips posed as pretend-anchovy crosses on top of the tart. For the black olives, I found some dried black dates in the fridge that I pitted and softened in a bowl of water.

I'm used to making pizza at home so the dough-making part didn't really bother me. Since it was a pretty thin crust, I used malted grain bread flour which made for a gloriously crisp and crunchy base. You can see the many, many dots of grain in the video. Oh, did I mention that I made a small production out of this? Which explains why I'm slightly late posting this week!



Despite the heavy subs, I was delighted with the way it turned out. It's really hard to go wrong with an onion tart, isn't it? Luckily all the flavors melded well together, and I'm not taking the pissaladière when I say that nobody at home missed the anchovies at all :-).

We don't give the recipes out over at FFWD but you can find it online here, and for more variations of this pissaladière, please check out our cooking group here.


I served this up with some refreshing Ginseng leaf salad, which isn't French at all, but then neither am I. Recipe for this salad will be up next week...consider this a teaser!


Have a fun weekend!

38 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thank you for reminding me.Great dish;) And your salad looks so good.As does your vlog:)

Norm said...

Your videos are so cute! That tart looks amazing, I think I might have to give it a try. I love that flour (good old Waitrose/Supasave!) - it's what I use for all my bread, so tasty.

Looking forward to trying the ginseng leaves myself soon...

Anonymous said...

I love your videos, so helpful, though I'm still not entirely sure what I did wrong with my own dough since yours seems to have been less sticky than mine (even after I added a ton more flour while kneading). Great substitution idea, I know that feeling of not wanting to go grocery shopping.

Unknown said...

che super pizza appetitosa! sai che il mio fidanzato va matto per i tuoi video? Li vede anche lui, quando vengo a farti visita e dice sempre "woooooooooooow, lei è bravissima".
Ha proprio ragione! Complimenti, come sempre! un bacio!

Mardi Michels said...

Very inventive your substitutions! It looks gorgeous! I also substituted the anchovies.... I felt the challenge here was the dough, though apparently not for you!

Cher Rockwell said...

I think I like the idea of dates even better than olives. Good substitution
I t.hink the challenge for me this week was kneading the dough by hand, since my mixer was indisposed by my "electrician"....

Roxana GreenGirl said...

love your substitutions Maya. I'm not at all fan of anchovies so my choice would have been olives too. Looks great!

TinaRBK said...

Great job on the subs, glad you were pleased with the results! Cool video here. Have a great weekend.

Anonymous said...

Loved the crimped edges!

Tasty Trix said...

You're not late in my hemisphere, doll!
Love your subs, and the crust is soooo pretty. I am not French either, perhaps this is why the idea of pizza DOES appeal to me so enormously? ; )

Ei said...

hehe--you're not late. I'M late. Hoping to get this done for dinner tonight. We'll see how it goes...

Ingenious use of substitutions! I'm glad it worked out. That salad is a beauty, too!

4pure by Andrea said...

Loved the edges and your variations. I think I would have liked it a lot more if I had did the same.

Frolicking Night Owl said...

Creative, as always!! :)

Cakelaw said...

I love your cool substitutions! I could have sworn those dates were olives, and if you aren't an anchovy fan, then the brined tuna and cured salmon is a great sub in.

Nana said...

Everything looks so good. All the substitutes worked
well and that is all that counts. I'm sure this recipe
can be worked with whatever you want to use. I'm
planning on using some left over puff pastry with
some spices to try this again. Great job, and love your photos.

stacy :) said...

Your dish looks lovely, with fantastic substitutions - the dates sound like they'd be delicious with the onions and fish!

Evelyne CulturEatz said...

Love your version so much better than with anchovies. And cannot wait to see the salad next week!

Kathy said...

Very creative...I think I would like the dates on this. Salad looks great!

Anonymous said...

how fun that you made a video! You live in the UK also?? Cool! Your salad looks so bright and refreshing!

Unknown said...

Hiya, thanks everyone for commenting! I've missed participating regularly in French Fridays lately... Hopefully the next series of recipes will get me more fired up and enthusiastic :-).

Unknown said...

Alice@acookingmizer, I actually live in the tropics. It must've been that Waitrose flour that made you think of the UK connection. Well, we can get all sorts of Waitrose stuff from one grocery store here :-). I love the variety of flours sold there!

Christy said...

Love the video! And especially the Gingseng Leaf Salad...will have to try to locate that!

Happy French Friday!

Adriana said...

I love your videos, Maya. They make the recipes approachable and so much fun. The salmon substitution is very inspired.

laurcl said...

I'm really impressed by your video, Maya. It was fun; the music, editing, etc. Plus it was helpful to see the consistency of your dough. Much firmer than mine. Do you really chop onions that fast? (-:

Kris' Kitchen said...

Your videos are so much fun. Your foods are so colorful...and I love color. I like the crimped edges and your substitutions. I'm all for using what you already have...sometimes the recipes inspire us and that's good enough.

Anonymous said...

Great job on the video! And the substitutions sound really wonderful, too.

Von said...

I LOVE the way you pleated the crust- it's so pretty! I also like the substitutions you made there- they sounds even better than the original ingredients!!

Unknown said...

A really pretty result. Agree with the other commenters that your subs were good ideas! looks delicious as with all your recipes! x

Nami | Just One Cookbook said...

Can I expect to watch a video clip every time? I enjoy watching how you move around and cook so much! It's more fun you in action than reading directions of the recipe! It requires a lot of work to edit and all, but I'm your #1 fan of your cooking video clips!

Unknown said...

Hi Nami, the video was fun to make but I can't guarantee one for every post because it takes so long to edit. This one took me half a day, then when I pressed the published button it all disappeared and I had to re-edit! LOL, it's funny looking back at it now.... Thanks for being my #1 video fan, Nami, it's a huge compliment. Now I'm waiting for YOUR videos! ;-)

Betsy said...

I LOVE your video, Maya! What fun. Your substitutions were brilliant as usual.

Anonymous said...

Great substitutions! And the ginseng leaf salad looks intriguing, don't think I can get those here, but would love to see the ingredients...

Frankly Entertaining said...

You used some very creative substitutions. I don't know that I would have ever thought about using olives, but you're right, you can't go wrong with an onion tart!

Trevor Sis Boom said...

So I think you need to call it something else. I don't say that because it my usual snarky attitude on such things but only because you ended up with something so unique and lovely. It deserves its own name!

tricia s. said...

Love love love that video -how cool !! The song was a great choice too :) My favorite part is watching you do the crimping in high speed. Your recipe turned out just amazing and I am impressed by your video and the fact that you knocked it all out with creative substitutes. Awesome post ~

Nancy said...

It's me again :) I love your Pissaladiere version and that you were creative with what you had at home. Your videos are looking great. Geesh I missed so many great posts on your blog being gone this past week plus, promise to keep catching up:)

Savoring Italy said...

I loved this recipe and the dough is just fantastic. Your subs are wonderful and seeing yours makes me hungry for more:)xx

Jenny VintageSugarcube) said...

This video- fantasticoooo and priceless. Girlll.. You are on a roll!! Remember me when you're famous. :)

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