Pie-a-Day #31: Baby Tomato Pie with Cheddar Crust and Cheddar-Garlic Streusel

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I was at the farmer’s market looking at the selection of gorgeous baby tomatoes.  Is seems that this year they’ve really come into their own.  The colors are like an earthy confetti, red, yellow, white, green, dark brown.  And the shapes, round oval, plum just intensify the desire to make a mix.  So even though I recently made the Martha Stewart Tomato Cobbler Pie I wanted to do it again, only tweak it.  Last time I used cilantro and ginger to give the tomatoes some oomph.

This time I wanted to play on the classic tomato, basil, garlic, cheese.   I decided to use cheddar because the Chedddar Crumble topping I used for an apple pie earlier in this project was absolutely delicious.  But I wanted to push the cheesiness a bit further.  So I made a cheddar crust by cutting back a bit on the butter I use in my basic crust and substituting about a healthy cupful of grated sharp cheddar.

I sauteed a minced onion until it was soft then added a couple of cloves of minced garlic.  I tossed the tomatoes with the onion-garlic mixture and a copious amount of fresh basil, a little salt and flour to absorb and thicken the juices.

The tomatoes went into the cheddar crust.  I made the topping with flour, a pinch of salt, a pinch of sugar, garlic, butter, and a lot of cheddar.  I like my crumble tops to be clumpy rather then crumbly so as I took the mixture out of the processor I squeezed it in my hand then broke it up in bigger pieces to put on top of the tomatoes.

Wow, was it a hit at KCRW

Cherry Tomato Pie with Cheddar Garlic Streusel

Enough dough of your choice for a single crust pie
¼ cup olive oil or butter
1 large onion diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 pounds assorted cherry tomatoes
1/2 cup chopped basil
Pinch of fresh ground black pepper
¼ cup flour

Roll out dough and place in pie pan, crimping or decorating the edges as you choose.

To make the tomato filling:

Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add onion and garlic. Cook stirring occasionally, until translucent and softened Transfer to a bowl to cool slightly.

Place tomatoes in a large bowl toss with cooled onion mixture, flour, salt to taste, the basil and pepper.  Place tomato mixture in pie pan and refrigerate while you prepare the topping.

Cheddar – Garlic Streusel:

1 cup flour
1 tablespoon sugar
1 garlic clove
1/3 cup cold butter
3/4 cup shredded Cheddar cheese

Put flour, sugar and garlic in bowl of food processor with steel blade.  Pulse to mix.  Add the butter and cheese.  Pulse several times until mixture comes together.

Heat oven to 400 degrees.  Remove pie from refrigerator and top with streusel mixture.  Place on lowest rack of preheated oven.  Bake for 40 to 50 minutes or until topping is golden brown and you can see thickened tomato juices peeking through.