Niçoise pissaladière

Onions as a gentle base

Pissaladière is a savory tart from Nice, on the French Mediterranean coast. The classic combination is simple and distinctive: bread dough, slowly cooked onions, anchovies and black olives. So it’s not a quiche with cream and eggs, nor a pizza with tomato sauce and cheese. The crust remains bread-like and relatively thin, topped with a generous layer of onions and finished with small, punchy accents of fish and olive.

The onions define its character. Slowly softening them over low heat with olive oil and thyme mellows their sharp, raw flavor and brings out their sweetness. Don’t let the pan get too hot, and stir regularly: browned edges add a fried flavor that changes the soft, even layer of onions. Allow about fifty minutes, depending on your pan and the quantity of onions. Let the mixture cool slightly before topping the dough, so it doesn’t make the dough unnecessarily wet or limp.

A strong white bread flour makes a springy crust, but regular all-purpose flour works too; the crust will be a little less chewy. Use anchovy fillets packed in oil and drain them. They’re salty, as are the olives, so add little or no extra salt to the onions. Small black olives from Nice work well in this dish. If they’re hard to find, other black olives are a good alternative; preferably choose olives with pits and remove them yourself, as pitted olives are often softer in texture.

Give the dough time to rise, then roll it out thinly. A thin crust bakes more evenly and keeps the ratio of dough to topping in balance. You can arrange the anchovies in a diamond pattern over the onions, with an olive at each crossing. It’s a recognizable presentation, but it’s not just decoration: this way, each slice gets roughly the same balance of salty and mellow flavors. Make sure the olives stay firmly in place and press them down gently.

Serve the pissaladière warm or at room temperature, cut into small slices for lunch or as part of a meal with a fresh green salad. The briny topping needs few extras on the table. Store leftovers covered in the refrigerator and later reheat them thoroughly in the oven; this keeps the crust firmer than reheating the tart in the microwave. Reheat only what you plan to eat.