Easy Pissaladière

By Nathalie Swift.

Pissaladière is a pizza-like dish originating from Nice. Traditionally, it features onion, anchovies, Niçoise olives, and fresh thyme. Many years ago, I got to taste a revisited version of the traditional Pissaladière and I have stuck to it ever since. It has always been a success whether served as an appetiser or as a light lunch with a salad on the side.

Ingredients:

- a roll of pizza dough or of shortcut pastry (pate brisée). Both options are equally good. It needs to be taken out of the fridge in order to be at room temperature

- 500g of sliced white onions

- few table spoons of olive oil

- tapenade (olive paste)

- anchoïade (anchovy paste) (optional)

- fresh thyme (optional)

Step 1:

Slice the onions.

Pour some olive oil in a pan and warm it.

Cook the onion at low temperature. They need to cook enough to become totally soft and get a nice amber colour. The trick is to cook them really slowly. It will take about 20 minutes to get them to the right texture. Once cooked you can add some fresh thyme.

In the meantime pre-heat your oven to 180C

Step 2:

Roll the pastry/dough on a flat baking tray. If the pastry/dough doesn't come with baking paper, lightly flour the tray.

Spread a mix of olive and anchovy paste (or just tapenade) in order to lightly cover the bottom of the pastry

Step 3:

Add the cooked onions on top of the tapenade in order to totally cover the base. Flatten the onion with a wooden spoon

Step 4:

Bake for about 20/30 minutes. The base needs to be cooked enough.

You can serve it hot or cold. You can make it in advance and heat it up for about 5 minutes at 180C.