Recipe of the Month

Celebrating the Season!
Three Great Tomato Salads

"In season, I can ill support a day without a tomato salad at one meal or the other" wrote the late Richard Olney in his 1988 book, "Ten Vineyard Lunches", and, as local, organic tomatoes emerge from tunnels all around the country, appearing in markets and good shops, we follow suit with this month's trio of recipes.

Tomato Salad

For Richard Olney the salad was "always the same ­ thinly sliced tomatoes fanned out on a platter, sliced green onions or onion rings, coarse sea salt and pepper ground over, dribbled with olive oil, a few drops of my herb vinegar, without which I would be helpless, and an abundant scattering of torn-up basil leaves and flower buds."

Whilst it is hard to resist the seasonal scattering of fresh basil leaves on our summer tomatoes, this mixture of parsley, olive oil and ground cumin is also knockout. We found it in Claudia Roden's classic "A Book of Middle Eastern Food".

Tomato Salad

750g (1 1/2 lb) firm tomatoes, sliced
1 red onion or a few spring onions, chopped
2 tablespoons finely chopped parsley
half teaspoon ground cumin

For the Salad Dressing, mix together 1 tablespoon lemon juice or vinegar, 3 tablespoons olive oil, 1-2 cloves garlic, crushed, salt and black pepper

Mix the tomatoes, onion, parsley and cumin in a bowl. Mix the dressing, pour it over the vegetables, and toss well.

This third recipe comes from Marcella Hazan. "When I gave a series of classes in Long Island" she writes "I included in the menu this tomato salad, done the way my father used to prepare it. When all the tomato was gone, students fought for possession of the serving platter to sop up the juices with bread. It seems difficult ever to make enough of this salad".

Garlic-Scented Tomato Salad

4 or 5 cloves garlic
salt
choice quality red wine vinegar
900g/2lb fresh, ripe, firm round or plum tomatoes
1 dozen fresh basil leaves
extra virgin olive oil

Peel the garlic cloves and mash them rather hard with a knife handle. Put them in a small bowl or saucer together with 1 to 2 teaspoons salt and 2 tablespoons vinegar. Stir and let it steep at least 20 minutes.

Skin the tomatoes raw using a swivelling-blade peeler, cut them into thin slices and spread the slices out in a deep serving platter.

When ready to serve the salad, wash the basil leaves in cold water, shake off their moisture, tear them by hand into 2 or 3 pieces each and sprinkle them over the tomatoes.

Pour the garlic-steeped vinegar through a wire strainer, distributing it over the tomatoes. Add enough olive oil to coat the tomatoes well, toss, taste and correct, if necessary, for salt and vinegar, and serve at once.