French · Provence · appetizer

Pissaladière

Pissaladière reads umami 7.8, salinity 6.6 and marine & briny 5.3 on Palate's 0–10 flavor X-ray — a French · Provence appetizer, about 3 hr 20 min. Measured from the recipe itself: ingredients and technique.

The flavor X-ray — six axes, 0–10

• Umami & Savory — 9.5 / 10
• Sweet & Fruity — 5.1 / 10
• Sour & Bright — 2.0 / 10
• Bitter & Earthy — 1.7 / 10
• Rich & Fat — 5.1 / 10
• Aromatic & Spice — 2.3 / 10

The measured notes (of 18)

Umami 7.8 · Salinity 6.6 · Marine & Briny 5.3 · Funk & Ferment 5.2 · Sweetness 4.9 · Richness 4.7 · Allium 2.0 · Sourness 2.0 · Bitterness 1.5 · Herbaceous 1.4 · Warm Spice 1.4 · Earthy 1.3 · Nutty 1.2 · Fruity 0.7 · Floral 0.5 · Heat 0.5

What's in it (13)

• bread flour — 300 g
• water — 180 g
• yeast — 5 g
• salt — 8 g
• olive oil — 69 g
• sweet onions — 2000 g
• thyme — 2 g
• bay leaf — 1 g
• anchovy fillets — 90 g
• niçoise olives — 90 g
• garlic — 8 g
• pissalat — 15 g
• freshly ground black pepper — 3 g

Time & effort: about 3 hr 20 min (1 hr 50 min active) · effort: involved

Nutrition (per 100 g, engine-estimated): 74.5 kcal, 2.9 g protein, 1 g fat, 13.8 g carbs

Dietary: Contains meat · Contains seafood — engine-derived; double-check anything allergy-critical.

How it's cooked (8 steps)

1. Mix the flour, yeast, salt, water and 2 tablespoons of the olive oil to a shaggy dough, then knead it 10 minutes until it is smooth, springy and no longer tacky. Cover and leave to rise about 90 minutes, until doubled.
2. Meanwhile put the onions in a wide pan with the remaining olive oil, the thyme and the bay. Cover and cook over low heat for 30 minutes, stirring now and then, then take the lid off and cook 30 minutes more until they collapse into a pale, melting jam. They should not brown. This is the point at which most cooks go wrong: a pissaladière is not an onion tart built on caramelisation — the onions stay blond and sweet, and browning them would bury the anchovy.
3. Stir the crushed garlic, the pissalat and the pepper through the onions off the heat and let them cool. The pissalat is the salted anchovy purée the tart is actually named after; buy it from a Niçois grocer if you can, and mash extra anchovies if you cannot.
4. Oil a shallow 30 x 40 cm tin. Roll or press the dough out to fill it, about 5 mm thick, and let it relax 20 minutes — if it fights you and springs back, stop and wait rather than forcing it.
5. Spread the cooled onions over the dough to within 1 cm of the edge. Lay the anchovy fillets across in a diamond lattice and press an olive into the centre of each diamond. Leave the olives whole and with their stones; that is how they are eaten here, and stoned olives go to mush in the oven.
6. Bake at 220°C (425°F) for 25 to 30 minutes. Judge it from underneath: lift a corner with a knife and look for a dry, crisp, faintly golden base. A pale soft base means the dough is still wet, whatever the top looks like.
7. Eat it warm or at room temperature with a glass of rosé, never straight from the oven — the onion flavour only arrives as it cools.
8. Substitutions: Nyons olives (about 90 g) can stand in for the small black Niçoise olives; 4 extra anchovy fillets mashed to a paste can stand in for the pissalat.

Dishes with a similar flavor shape

• Vietnamese Caramelized Salmon and Rice Bowls — Vietnamese
• Pad See Ew with Chicken — Thai
• Crostini Neri di Fegatini — Italian · Tuscany
• Garlic Noodles — American · Californian
• Pad See Ew — Thai

Keep reading: what umami, salinity, marine & briny mean in the flavor lexicon · the world's cuisines, by flavor.

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Every number above is Palate's engine-measured estimate, computed from this recipe's ingredients and techniques — not human-tasted ratings or reviews.