Upcycling Dough Leftovers into a Delicious Caramelized Onion Tart – Quick Guide

This particular recipe offers a speedy interpretation on pissaladière, transforming a small amount of pastry scraps into a spontaneous treat. Store and gather any trimmings into a round mass and roll out again whenever needed. Pastry stores nicely in the freezer compartment, and by omitting two laborious procedures in the classic recipe – creating the dough and caramelising the onions – this dish comes together in nearly half the time. Alternatively, the onions are heated upside down, cooking and browning under a layer of dough with salted fish and brined olives for a fast, playful variation on a French classic. And if you have less pastry, you can always halve the recipe.

Speedy Flipped Pissaladière Tarts

The recent wave of flipped tarts, which became popular on social media and photo-sharing apps a few years back, may have started with a tasty and straightforward sweet pastry creation or an inspirational onion tart that even resulted in a whole book on upside-down cooking. Additionally, I have been experimenting with inverted baking lately, from an lengthy vegetable pastry to these speedy mini French tarts. It’s a easy, fun approach to create something that seems particularly unique.

Yields 4 personal pastries

• 1 purple onion
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tbsp honey
• Sea salt and freshly ground pepper
• 8 anchovies (or 4, for a subtler flavor)
• Brined olives, to taste
• 120g pastry sheets – flaky or buttery can be used as well

Warm up the oven to 210C (190C fan)/410F/gas 6½. Strip and prepare the onion, then cut into four large, round slices. Prepare a stovetop-safe cookie sheet with parchment, then visualize where you will position each slice of onion. Pour those spots with oil and syrup, then season. Put two anchovies on top of each flavored spot and cover them with a round of onion. Arrange a few black olives in and around the onions, then sprinkle with a extra fat, honey, salt and pepper.

Switch on two adjacent hob rings to a medium heat, place the pan on top of the rings and leave the onions to heat undisturbed for five minutes.

In the meantime, on a sprinkled with flour counter, flatten the sheets and trim it into four pieces just large enough to enclose each round of onion. Carefully lay one dough piece on top of each piece of onion, flatten on the perimeter with the flat side of a tool, then bake for 20 minutes, until the dough is browned. Set a board on top of the hot pan, then turn over to flip the tarts on to the board. Slowly lift off the paper and serve.