Winter tomatoes and fried bread with herb sauce
This is one of several iterations of tomato salad in this book. What can I say, I love tomatoes. This version is a very simple sort of panzanella, an Italian tomato and bread salad. The winter varieties of tomato are flavourful even in the colder months and have a firmer texture. I’d recommend making the sauce and the fried bread elements first because the final assembly of this dish is rapid and should only happen immediately prior to consumption for maximum freshness and impact.
This recipe is an extract from Cooking for People by Mike Davies
If you like this recipe, why not try some of the other Tomato Recipes from the House & Garden archive?
Winter tomatoes and fried bread with herb sauce
Ingredients
For the herb sauce
For the fried bread
To serve
For the herb sauce
Step 1
Chop the herbs as finely as you like, or you can use a food processor to blend the tarragon and parsley with 1 tablespoon of oil and then chop in the chives.
Step 2
Add the capers and mix into the herbs with all of the remaining ingredients.
Step 3
Season well with salt and pepper. The aim is to create something fresh and lively, the herbaceous flavours pepped up with the mustard, vinegar and capers.
For the fried bread
Step 4
Melt the butter and oil in a heavy-based frying pan and gently fry the bread. Season with salt and pepper. You are looking for the bread to absorb the fat and crisp slightly without becoming brittle, and ideally you want a little softness left at the core of the bread.
Step 5
Allow to cool slightly before tearing or cutting into bitesize pieces–irregular shapes are a good thing because varying degrees of surface area means different levels of sauce absorption in the salad, which we want to encourage
To serve
Step 6
Using your sharpest knife, cut the tomatoes as you like. My preference is for them to be cut at random–I just love how it sits on the plate when you have all sorts of different angles resting indifferent ways.
Step 7
Put the tomatoes in a mixing bowl and season with salt, pepper and a little caster sugar.
Step 8
Dress the tomatoes in the herb sauce, likely all of it is fine, but if you want it lighter, add a little less.
Step 9
Add the fried bread and fold through the salad, allowing it to catch any excess juice as the tomatoes start to bleed and mix with the dressing.
Step 10
This dish works well individually plated or on a platter placed in the middle of the table for people to help themselves.
