Stanley Tucci Made Ina Garten's Tomato & Goat Cheese Crostata—and We're Making It ASAP
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Ina Garten is our culinary spirit guide, especially in the summer when she pulls out all of the stops to coax out maximum flavor from all of the produce she snags at her local Hamptons farm stands. (Have you tried her Parmesan Roasted Zucchini yet, by the way? Incredible. And incredibly simple.)
Apparently, actor Stanley Tucci feels the same about Queen Ina. The movie star showed off his penchant for all things food-focused in his stunning show Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy. But that interest is nothing new for fans who have followed him on Instagram prior to the show. He has been allowing us to pull up a seat at his "table" through mouth-watering recipe images long before the series began streaming.
Recently, he and his partner recreated one Garten garden masterpiece:
"Felicity made this," @stanleytucci captions the Instagram post, referring to his wife Felicity Blunt. "We ate it. We loved it. The second picture is what it once looked like. Thank you brilliant @inagarten."
Garten herself spotted the tag and responded, "So glad you loved it!! ❤️❤️❤️"
Jennifer Causey, Getty Images / David M. Benett / Patrick McMulla
We're sure we'll love it, too, especially after reading a fan's comment on the Tomato and Goat Cheese Crostata recipe, "I just made this tonight for my husband and I with tomatoes from our garden! Oh my goodness soooo good!!! You will not be disappointed."
After taking a peek at the process of the recipe, which appears on Food Network's website and in Garten's most recent cookbook, Modern Comfort Food (buy it: $19, Target), we imagined the most complicated part would be fussing with the pastry dough. But Garten once again proves that something can look elegant and be surprisingly easy, since she calls for incorporating all of the ingredients for the dough together in a food processor (she loves this Cuisinart Pro Custom 11-Cup Food Processor; buy it: $140, Amazon).
Pulse flour and salt in the food processor, add diced, very cold butter, tossing to coat the butter cubes in the flour blend. Pop the lid back on and pulse about 15 times, or until the butter is pea-sized. As you do so, slowly pour ice water through the feed tube and stop mixing when the blend forms a ball.
Transfer the dough to a flour-coated surface, form it into a disk and refrigerate for an hour.
As that chills, melt butter in a large skillet. Toss in chopped leeks, fresh thyme, salt and pepper, then sauté until the leeks are tender and golden. On a plate, place thinly-sliced heirloom tomatoes (Garten recommends using a serrated knife to cut them, and suggests using "only the beautiful center slices.") Sprinkle the tomatoes with salt and pepper, drizzle with olive oil and set aside.
On the same surface, flour-coated once again, roll the chilled dough into a large circle. Transfer that to a sheet of parchment paper to make it easy to transfer to an inverted pan. (Flipping the pan so the edges are down ensures that all edges of the crust receive similar levels of oven heat.)
Related: 21 Summer Dinners You Can Make on a Sheet Pan
Spread the leeks atop the pastry, leaving a border, then crumble on goat cheese. Lastly, arrange tomatoes so they overlap shingle-style since they'll shrink as they cook. Fold over the edges of the pastry and crimp them so they lie flat. Brush the edges with an egg wash (1 egg whisked with 1 tablespoon of milk) then bake for about 30 minutes. Garnish with fresh herbs and serve warm as an appetizer or side dish alongside your favorite summer dinner entrée.
If you're feeling inspired to follow in the delicious footsteps of the Tuccis and Ina, you can score the Tomato and Goat Cheese Crostata recipe here. If you enjoy that, you might also adore our Tomato Tart (pictured above), Tomato Pie and Tomato Tart with Burrata. Tomato season is ripe with options, and now is the time to enjoy them!
