Thursday, September 24, 2009

End of Summer Tomato Salad


Last night I was with a friend from Italy and we are two of the most different people you can imagine. We had a blast and laughed over the many differences.

I can throw a toothbrush and a razor in a backpack and go anywhere and he travels with an entourage of suitcases.

My closets have been converted to pantries and my wine refrigerator to a meat curing cube and he has more clothes than I can imagine wearing in a year.

The evening just reminded me how much I love the simple pleasures and made me think of one of my favorite meals. Simplicity in itself the base being just sliced tomatoes, but with a crust of bread and a glass of wine it is heaven.

As we soon will leave the season of abundant ripe tomatoes I encourage you to head to your garden or a Farm Market soon and try this for yourself. Reduce the number of anchovies if you must but don't eliminate them from this dressing. They provide a depth of flavor that makes the salad a meal.

I had variations of this all over Rome and Napoli so feel free to vary it yourself. With these good ingredients you can't go wrong.

  • 1 cup pitted green and black olives, roughly chopped
  • a nice handful of chopped fresh parsley leaves
  • 20 anchovy fillets, chopped
  • 1/4 cup capers
  • 2 cloves garlic, grated
  • A huge handful or 4 of fresh basil, chopped.
  • freshly ground black pepper
  • 1/4 cup really fruity peppery extra-virgin olive oil
  • 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
  • 4 large ripe tomatoes sliced
Stir all the ingredients together save the garlic. Get your cheese grater and grate the fresh garlic into the dressing and give it another stir.

Slice the tomatoes and arrange on a platter and use a spoon to mound this dressing over the slices. Serves two as a meal and 4 as an appetizer.

IF for any reason you have leftovers chop the tomatoes and store in the frig, the next day warm and toss over pasta...it makes a killer fresh pasta sauce. I will say the only time I had leftovers was when I did 8 large tomatoes for two persons, and even then...not too much left.






1 comment:

Sonny said...

This sounds delicious, I'm going to make it tomorrow for supper. I love your blog!