Taking the pissaladiere

If you're easily shocked foodwise, stop reading now. From time to time, instead of starting from scratch with the yeast and flour and blah blah, I buy ready-made pizza bases. Problem is, they don't work very well. So when my friend Camille told me to buy the thin Turkish ones instead because they make a much nicer thin crispy base, I listened.   
      

Tonight I decided to try one of these out. I didn't want to start with the usual tomato stuff, so instead I came up with a sort of modified pissaladiere, the famous Provencal tart made with fresh yeast dough covered in soft onion, anchovies and black olives. There's a recipe for it in the lovely New Zealand Vegetable Cookbook, which was launched on Friday (it's by Lauraine Jacobs, Ginny Grant, and Kathy Paterson, Random House, $49.99 - why don't they just say $50, I wonder?)
            Of course it would be much better to start with the fresh dough. I know that. But sometimes life gets in the way of food. And this was for dinner, so I wanted something a bit more substantial than onions on top.
             I chopped the onions fine instead of slicing them, added some thyme leaves, cooked them till soft and spread them over the base. On top went a layer of grated cheese, then the usual anchovies and olives (Gamboni's oil-cured Provencal flavoured ones) and a few scraps of bacon.

 The instructions with the base were to cook it for 6-8 minutes at 200C on a preheated tray or stone, but they were wrong. You need the oven as hot as it will go. For ours this is meant to be 230C but I think it's really only 220C at best, probably less.



After 15 minutes I was too hungry to leave it in any longer, though I should have. And the bacon didn't add much. Still, for an illegitimate quickie take on its wonderfully named original, it wasn't bad at all.