Harvest Tart With Pumpkin and Peppers

Harvest Tart With Pumpkin and Peppers
Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times
Total Time
2½ hours
Rating
4(334)
Notes
Read community notes

A savory, olive oil-crusted tart stuffed full of golden, roasted peppers, jammy onions and some freshly grated pumpkin is a great dinner party treat, although it's perfectly wonderful for a family evening repast as well. Salt the pumpkin ahead of time to draw out excess moisture, though if you are pressed for time you can skip this step. To perk up the caramelized intensity of the filling, it is helpful to fold in something zingy like olive or capers, or perhaps a good splash of lemon juice.

Featured in: A Good Appetite: A Dinner Party That’s Warm, Welcoming and Meatless

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Ingredients

Yield:6 servings
  • pounds pumpkin, preferably cheese pumpkin, or butternut squash, peeled, seeded and coarsely grated
  • teaspoons fine sea salt
  • cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
  • ¾cup plus 2½ tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for greasing
  • 1red bell pepper, seeded and cut into ¼-inch strips
  • 1yellow bell pepper, seeded and cut into ¼-inch strips
  • 1sweet onion, such as Vidalia, thinly sliced
  • cup chopped pitted black olives (kalamatas are good)
  • 2teaspoons chopped fresh thyme leaves
  • 1teaspoon smoked sweet paprika
  • ½teaspoon black pepper
  • 1garlic clove, minced
Ingredient Substitution Guide
Nutritional analysis per serving (6 servings)

723 calories; 35 grams fat; 5 grams saturated fat; 0 grams trans fat; 24 grams monounsaturated fat; 4 grams polyunsaturated fat; 93 grams carbohydrates; 6 grams dietary fiber; 6 grams sugars; 12 grams protein; 825 milligrams sodium

Note: The information shown is Edamam’s estimate based on available ingredients and preparation. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.

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Preparation

  1. Step 1

    At least 2 hours or the night before baking, toss the pumpkin with ¼ teaspoon salt in a colander set over a bowl. Place a heavy weight on top, cover with plastic and refrigerate. Discard any liquid in bottom of bowl.

  2. Step 2

    To make the pastry, in a large bowl combine 4½ cups flour and 1½ teaspoons salt. With pastry cutter or fork, mix in ¾ cup oil until it forms coarse crumbs. Add about ⅔ cup very cold water, a few tablespoons at a time, until mixture just comes together. You may not need to add all the water, or you may need to use more water to achieve the right texture. The dough should be stretchier than a pie crust. Form into a ball, cover with plastic, and refrigerate at least 1 hour.

  3. Step 3

    Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Toss the peppers and onion with 2½ tablespoons oil and ½ teaspoon salt. Spread on 2 large baking sheets in one layer. Roast, tossing occasionally, until vegetables are caramelized and golden, about 40 minutes.

  4. Step 4

    In a large bowl, combine the pumpkin, pepper-onion mixture, olives, thyme, paprika, black pepper and garlic.

  5. Step 5

    Preheat the oven to 425 degrees and grease a large baking sheet. Dust a work surface lightly with flour. Roll out dough into a 17-by-12-inch rectangle. With long side facing you, spread vegetable mixture evenly over right half of dough. Dab edges of dough with water. Fold left half over filling and pinch edges firmly to seal. Using knife, cut a slit in center of crust, pulling back edges slightly to form a 2½-inch hole.

  6. Step 6

    Transfer crust to baking sheet. Bake for 20 minutes, reduce heat to 350 degrees and continue baking until vegetables are fork tender and crust is well browned, 35 to 40 minutes longer. Cool for at least 30 minutes before serving. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Ratings

4 out of 5
334 user ratings
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Private Notes

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Cooking Notes

This is my favorite vegetarian main dish to make for Thanksgiving or other autumn feasts. I'm not vegan, so I usually add goat cheese. I also usually use kabocha squash instead of pumpkin or butternut.

This was a great vegetarian dish for Thanksgiving. Based on prior reviews, I combined this filling with the dough from Melissa Clark's Savory Pumpkin Tart (Citrouillat) recipe on this site. There was more dough than I needed. The crust came out very well - crisp and flaky. I pre-roasted the squash so that it was also caramelized, and added lemon zest and feta to the filling. Delicious.

I made the crust in the food processor with good success. Flavor is a bit bland-agree that goat or feta would be a nice addition. More crust than I think necessary. Next time I might put in a casserole dish and just make half the crust to put on top.

My crust turned out hard as a rock as I suspected it would after I started working with it. Never made a crust with oil before and don't think I ever will again. Stuffing was very tasty, full of flavors.

Just too lazy to go the whole route with this, so... I roasted the veggies at 450 for a half hour - butternut squash chunks, yellow and red pepper, sweet onion, carrots. Added suggested spices, then put veggies in casserole dish, covered with shaved parmesan, and put puff pastry on top. Cooked at 400 until pastry was done. It was absolutely delicious!

Also, the onions were cooked well before the peppers. Onions done after about 10 minutes, peppers done 15 minutes after that. So best to separate them on the baking sheet so it's easy to remove the onions before they burn.

This dish was acceptable but I think the flavors were just too plain subtle for my liking, and the crust a little starchy (olive oil doesn't produce that sinful flake the way butter does!). I agree with others that recommend adding goat or feta cheese to snazz it up a bit; I'd go even further and add some chipotle for a little bit of smokiness which really goes great with pumpkins/squash.

Definitely use a butter crust in place of this one, and add more olives, lemon zest, goat cheese and feta in the filling for more flavor. I also did more of a pot pie approach with just the crust on top as I didn't like the way the crust was rolling out and looking.

crust only on top, casserole feta or/and goat cheese puff pastry lemon zest

I live at 8300 ft and could not get the to dough to be cohesive and flexible enough to fold no matter how much water was added. I ended up placing half in a 9x13 pan, spreading the filling over it and topping it with the rest of the dough like a giant pot pie. It was a bit on the dry side but the filling flavors were excellent.

I used the Whole Wheat Yeasted Olive Oil Pastry because I had it in the freezer. Definitely use all the salt called for. I added some EVOO because people saying it was dry (I'll take any excuse to add evoo.) I'll definitely make this again. YUM.

Like JC, I mixed this w/ Melissa Clark's savory pumpkin tart. Pre-roasted squash, and separately the onions and peppers. Capers would be good, but forgot them. Add garlic cloves and a handful of chopped parsley + thyme on top before closing the crust. I made butter crust (from tart) with whole wheat pastry flour. It was reasonably flavorful, but too much; resulting crust was too thick (rolled out about .33" thick, should be half that). Should reduce flour by .75 c.

I used a cheese pumpkin and finely chopped it rather than grating. I also skipped the step of salting and pressing it, which made the tart pretty moist inside. I didn't have thyme, so I used sage, which tasted good. I will probably make this again but will roll the dough a little thinner.

Reading through all the comments praising the filling and dissing the crust, I'm going to try this but wrapped in phyllo layers instead of the pastry given here. I'm imagining a sort of vegetarian Pithiviers.

I’m disappointed with this recipe, especially the crust. Use a different crust, if you must make it. I like the smokiness of the paprika, but this isn’t really ready to be the centerpiece of a vegetarian Thanksgiving spread. The NYT mushroom wellington — THAT lives up to the hype. This is just falls flat flavor-wise.

butter crust is a dramatic improvement. For vegans, a crisco crust would probably work better. The addition of feta goes a long way (though a tangy goat could work too). I like Nicoise olives as they are slightly sweeter and compliment the peppers. Finally, I like to add a touch of indian spices like Garam Masala. I made a modified garam masala with less cumin and more cinnamon. Takes a one note sweet pepper/onion taste and makes it much more complex and interesting.

I made this with Pepperidge Farm puff pastry dough, which is also vegan. I used one box for the amount of filling this recipe makes - one sheet on the bottom and one on top. The pastry browned during the 20 minutes at 425 without even needing the additional time at 350. Next time I would probably reduce the oven temperature and cook for a bit longer. Delicious!

This looks yummy. I am trying to add vegetarian options for Thanksgiving. I may try to add pickled lemons and forgo the crust and top with rumpled filo.

Per other notes, roasted my peppers, onions, and kabocha separate. Skipped the weird draining direction. When assembling, I used a classic pie dough and added some sliced impossible meat (vegetarian) italian sausage and goat cheese. Forgot all the seasonings but came out tasting great, lets face it fall squash is the best. Would make again, wondering how to get a bit more moisture in the filling. Any thoughts?

This is by far one of the best dishes I have ever made! The recipe is very easy to follow and full of flavor. I however, as a non vegetarian, added one package of cooked Turkey sausage to the filling before baking. I will most definitely be making this again for friends and family.

Just too lazy to go the whole route with this, so... I roasted the veggies at 450 for a half hour - butternut squash chunks, yellow and red pepper, sweet onion, carrots. Added suggested spices, then put veggies in casserole dish, covered with shaved parmesan, and put puff pastry on top. Cooked at 400 until pastry was done. It was absolutely delicious!

Addes Parm for extra flavor and texture. Don't let the tart sit around too long before baking or the crust will become too hard.

Melissa Clark has never let me down before, so I tried this for Thanksgiving. The crust fell apart as I was rolling it out. I ended up putting the filling into a baking pan and piecing the crust over it. This recipe was not worth the effort - it looked terrible and tasted ok at best. The filling was ok, but I can think of better uses for pumpkin. I will not make this one again.

I’m vegetarian, cow’s milk intolerant and celiac (gluten-free). Does anyone have a hack for this using gluten-free ingredients? I love the idea of adding some sort of goat cheese to it also - wondering if anyone has experimented with different textures? Thank-you!!

I might make this again but I would NOT make this olive oil crust again but opt for a traditional flaky pie crust. This was too hard and not very tasty.

Like JC, I mixed this w/ Melissa Clark's savory pumpkin tart. Pre-roasted squash, and separately the onions and peppers. Capers would be good, but forgot them. Add garlic cloves and a handful of chopped parsley + thyme on top before closing the crust. I made butter crust (from tart) with whole wheat pastry flour. It was reasonably flavorful, but too much; resulting crust was too thick (rolled out about .33" thick, should be half that). Should reduce flour by .75 c.

Dough was not great - tough and thick, maybe make much less so it can be rolled out thinner. Butternut squash did not release any water overnight. Sautéed squash with garlic until squash browned and caramelized a little. Added way more garlic than called for. Added capers, lemon zest, and cotija cheese to final mixture. Would be delicious with better dough.

crust only on top, casserole feta or/and goat cheese puff pastry lemon zest

Reading through all the comments praising the filling and dissing the crust, I'm going to try this but wrapped in phyllo layers instead of the pastry given here. I'm imagining a sort of vegetarian Pithiviers.

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