Pissaladière

About This Recipe

Pissaladière is the soul of Provençal café cooking — a thin, bread-like tart blanketed with onions cooked down for over an hour until jammy and sweet, then laced with salty anchovies in a lattice and dotted with tiny Niçon olives. The name comes from pissalat, a fermented anchovy paste once smeared on the dough. Unlike its Italian cousin pizza, there's no tomato and no cheese — the magic is in the slow patience of the onions and the briny punch of the toppings. Served warm or at room temperature, cut into squares as a casual lunch, an aperitif snack with chilled rosé, or alongside a green salad for a light dinner.

Ingredients

Serves 8

• 350 gbread flour
• 1 tspinstant yeast
• 1 tspfine salt
• 220 mlwarm water
• 3 tbspolive oil, plus more for drizzling
• 1.5 kgyellow onions, thinly sliced
• 4 clovesgarlic, minced
• 3 sprigsfresh thyme
• 2bay leaves
• 1 tspsugar
• 12 filletssalt-packed or oil-packed anchovies
• 30small black Niçoise or Taggiasca olives, pitted
• freshly ground black pepper

Instructions

1. 1

   Mix dough

   Whisk flour, yeast, and salt in a bowl. Add warm water and 2 tbsp olive oil. Stir to a shaggy dough, then knead 8 minutes until smooth and elastic. Cover and let rise 1.5 hours until doubled.

2. 2

   Start the onions

   Heat remaining olive oil in a wide pan over medium-low. Add onions, garlic, thyme, bay leaves, sugar, and a generous pinch of salt. Stir to coat.

3. 3

   Slow-cook to jam

   Cook uncovered, stirring every few minutes, for 60–75 minutes until onions collapse into a deep golden, almost sticky mass. Lower the heat if they color too quickly — you want sweetness, not bitterness.

4. 4

   Cool and season

   Remove thyme stems and bay leaves. Taste — onions should be lightly salty (anchovies will add more). Cool to lukewarm.

5. 5

   Shape

   Heat oven to 220°C with a baking tray inside. Punch dough down. Roll on parchment to a rectangle about 30×40 cm and 5 mm thick.

6. 6

   Top

   Spread cooled onions evenly to within 1 cm of the edges. Arrange anchovy fillets in a diamond lattice. Tuck an olive into each diamond. Drizzle generously with olive oil.

7. 7

   Bake

   Slide parchment onto hot tray. Bake 18–22 minutes until edges are deep golden and the base is crisp.

8. 8

   Rest and serve

   Cool 10 minutes. Cut into squares with a pizza wheel. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Variations

• •

  Use puff pastry for a quicker, flakier version.

• •

  Vegetarian: skip anchovies and add capers plus a few sun-dried tomatoes.

• •

  Add a thin layer of caramelized fennel under the onions for an aniseed note.

Storage

Best the day it's baked. Refrigerate up to 2 days; revive in a 180°C oven for 6 minutes — never microwave (the crust turns leathery).

Frequently Asked Questions