Gorgeous summer heirloom tomatoes – 1 easy recipe, two applications. Simple and so delicious. Full written recipe available at www.enidgrace.com
Hello all. Welcome back to the culinary barn. I have two for the price of one today. I believe it was last week I put out a call to you to find out what particular types of recipes you would like me to focus on for the next couple of weeks. And overwhelmingly, it was requests for tomato-based recipes and stone fruit. Uh depending on where you happen to be in the world, um tomatoes and stone fruits are at their peak right now. Particularly tomatoes and I have been saying it to anyone willing to listen to me that this is the time to enjoy them. Preserve them, eat them, just whatever you can do with them because swift reminder, those winter tomatoes are coming and we all know what they taste like or better said don’t taste like. So, make the most of what you have. And so, I’ve got two very simple recipes for you today. you’re going to use one recipe as the base and a standalone and then simply just by adding some pasta to that base recipe, you have a completely separate recipe that is fantastic. So, I just have to say this week, this past week was a bit nutters and I worked all day today and made a point to go home and take a nap. And the older I get, the more I’m able to actually nap. And it was incredible. I feel super rejuvenated and happy to be back here in the barn cooking. So, I wish you all any attempt you have to take a nap, take a nap. It’s amazing. Star of the show for both of these recipes is going to be these local beautiful tomatoes. I have a collection of some from my garden and some from um the lovely Chase One Farms. But, I mean, come on. Like look at this. It’s just these are things of absolute beauty. Anyone that calls these ugly or disfigured, we cannot be friends. Look at this gorgeous. This is a variegated plum. And I’ve got one of these black beauties here as well. And then just a smattering handful of all different little babies in here, including cute little picolino ones here. So, this is going to be the base. Really, all of these ingredients are quite fresh. And in fact, our other main ingredient outside of the pasta for the second recipe is just some good bread. This is slightly old. This is some good local sourdough from um White Willow Bakery close to where I am. Uh so, we’re going to use some of this for the topping of the first recipe, which is going to be a uh tomato gratine or gratine pomodoro. uh essentially just baked tomatoes with breadcrumbs and some herbs, which typically I would just serve with some crusty bread. And then we’re going to take that sauce, that sauce, and then flip it over with some beautiful pasta. And then you have a main course. So, some dried bread or slightly dried bread. And then our other aromatics, infusions are just going to be some good oldfashioned lemon, some garlic. I’ve got a little bit of scallion from the garden. And then more from the garden. I’ve got beautiful basil and some majarano. Some beautiful margarm. Majarano. I love saying that word. Anyways, essentially like Italian, it’s like an Italian oregano, I guess. Um, but it’s a little bit softer, a little bit more floral. Really popular in northern Italy. And I grow it a lot and use it almost every day. Um it’s just a really kind of undervalued aromatic soft stem herb. So if you can find this or better yet if you can grow it, it’s so simple to grow. Um try this out. Um in lie of oregano in a lot of recipes whereas oregano can be a bit overpowering, margarm is a little bit softer. So we’re going to get right on to it because this could not be simpler. I’ve got a pan here. Now, if you wanted to do this for a crowd, you could do this in um like a larger baking tray or um bracier or um like even a lasagna pan, but I’m just making this for a few people. So, I’m just going to use a small copper pan. And right in the bottom, I’m going to go in with just some good quality olive oil. Not too much, just a maybe like a tablespoon and a half, a couple tablespoons or so. And then before I get on with the tomatoes, you can of course just chop these or just rip them up. But I am just going to throw I’ve got um three whole garlic cloves. And I’m going to save the scallions for the top. And then for the herbs, I’m just going to pull the bottom leaves off the major. And then for the top part where the stem is still quite soft and flexible, I’m just going to pluck that off and put the leaves and the stem in. So, I think I’ve got three or four stems of margarm here. And then same for the basil. I’m just going to pluck off the leaves as well as any bit of the soft stem. Just kind of give you an idea. This is sort of hard, tense stem that isn’t particularly pleasant to eat. But this flexible stem here is totally edible. So, don’t throw it away. And throw your leaves in. And because we’re going to um bust this up a little bit in the pestle and mortar, um you don’t have to worry about the stem um affecting the texture of this at all. And I’m going in with a decent amount of basil, but you can put as little in as you like. And of course, you can change the herbs as well. I’m going to save a little bit that for the top. And we need some salt. So, just a little bit of salt and some pepper as well if you like. And then I’m just going to go in and give this a good bash just to get the garlic beat down. I apologize for the noise. So, good little arm workout. And I’ve just kind of turned it into just like a kind of loose rough I wouldn’t even say paste. Um, but I’ve just really brought out all the oils and the herbs and released the moisture from the garlic. So, it’s a little bit sticky, a little bit oily, and we’re going to add that in with our tomatoes in a moment. So, for these gorgeous tomatoes, I’m just going to do very rough, haphazard cuts on these. Just cutting around that top core. And I’m leaving the pieces relatively large cuz I don’t want this to turn in to um like a big pan of like mushy tomatoes. I still want them to have a little bit of texture to them. So, just a rough hack. I’m going to do this one big beautiful pineapple one. And I think I’ll go in with this beautiful Russian black as well. And again, just kind of haphazard pieces. I like the kind of rough and tumbleness of it. And I think just because I love the look of this variegated plum, I’m just going to nick that in there. And then for these little ones, I think I’m just going to do a few. Not too many. Again, I’ve got all different shapes and sizes. So, just use what you have. Little sitron one here, which is gorgeous. And some of these little baby ones. I’m just not even going to cut. I’m just going to throw them in whole because they’re just so tiny and perfect. And let’s do maybe Oh, I’ve got another little pear one here. And this one looks pretty. And let’s go with one more. And that should be good. So, there you have just on its own is just a gorgeous pan of beautiful summer tomatoes. And honestly, just a little bit of good quality olive oil, some salt and pepper, a little bit of fresh herb on top, and maybe um a little bit of cucumber, and just serve this as the most incredible summer salad. And you don’t even have to worry about cooking anything. Alas, this is a cooked recipe. So, I’m going to just take our little mash of herbs and garlic here, and I’m just going to spread this around the top. get all of that flavor out of here like so. And just kind of push it down in between the tomatoes. And now on to our bread. So, like I said, for the bread, I’m using a slightly stale piece of sourdough, but if you happen to have some baguette left over, um, or any type of good quality bread, uh, just use that. So, I am just making again a smaller version of this um gratine. Um what I will say is the one type of breadcrumb you don’t want to use for something like this is a dried storebought breadcrumb like one of those ones in the canister that is more meant for making meatballs or meatloaf. You want to actually use a good quality bread. And when those breadcrumbs get put on as a gratine, I find they just end up being more like sand and the texture is just not particularly pleasant. So, I’m just going to take a good old wadge of this beautiful sourdough. And I’m just going to perhaps take out a little bit of minor aggression if you happen to have any. And just tear this all apart in very halfhazard pieces. And if you want, you can just run it between your hands and it’ll just fall apart like so. And this is again not fresh fresh, but it’s also not dried to the bone. So, there’s still a little bit of moisture in here. So, as you rub it between your hands, it just kind of falls apart like so. Now, what I don’t want is like a particularly large piece of crust. So, any of the crusty bits, you can of course cut those off, but I love them and they have so much flavor and why waste them. And also, if you just don’t want to do the tearing method, go ahead and just take your knife and just mill it through all your breadcrumbs, if you need to break them down to size a little bit quicker. But I love this hands-on technique of just rubbing it between my fingers. Okay, so for our breadcrumbs, I’m going to put these up on top. All of them. Little rain shower of breadcrumbs a top of our gorgeous tomatoes. And then we need some cheese. And next up is some cheese. And in this case, I’m just going with good old fresh fashion parmyo. And I’ve just got some freshly grated over here. And you can be quite generous here if you want. So some parigano on top. I am just going to finish with a touch more salt. and a little bit more olive oil on top. Now, I have my oven preheated to a very high temperature. It’s actually at 425° and this will allow the gratine top, the breadcrumb to get really crispy really fast without getting like overly soggy from the top part of the tomatoes. Um, we’re only going to leave this in there for about 12 to 15 minutes. And again, that is just enough time to crisp up the breadcrumbs and soften the tomatoes a little bit and create a little bit of a sauce. So, I’m going to plunk this into that 425° oven. And then when I come back, you’re going to see the end result, how I would serve this if I was just having this for like a snack or um a patitivo or an antipasti. And then I’ve got a um pot of boiling water on the stove. I’m going to toss in some beautiful dried pasta. I’m going to do just some spaettini here. Um and then I’m going to just show you how you just mix this um with some fresh pasta and then you have a completely separate recipe. Okay, so I just put the tomatoes in that very hot oven and I dropped my pasta. So I have about 12 minutes or so to have a little me time out in the garden. So, I thought I would sit a spell and um of course when something’s in the oven, that means flipping through a book time for me. And uh I have gone ahead with, as I mentioned, vegetables by Antonio Klucho. And this one is not actually a vegetarian cookbook. It just focuses on vegetables, um seasonality vegetables. Um but there are recipes in here that predominantly feature vegetables but also have meat in them. So, just bear that in mind. It’s not a vegetarian cookbook. Um, but I thought I would show you uh a few of the tomato recipes in here uh that might inspire you in addition. So, let’s take a peek. So, in his book, he has uh most of his tomato recipes listed under the bush and tree fruits. So, I always love sort of the historical content that’s available. And then a few pages into this chapter, we do get into he’s got a beautiful summer cucumber and tomato soup. Uh the gorgeous zucchini blossoms. I’ve made so many in the last few weeks. Um but then we get into uh there’s our first main tomato recipe. We’ve got um an adabata sauce with anduya, which is a beautiful spicy tomato sauce. And then we also have his classic tomato sauce, which is very simplified, just using the best tomatoes and some basil. This is very similar to the one I make, but I tend to finish mine with a little bit of butter because why not? It’s slightly more of a northern Italian thing to do. And then we’ve got a green tomato jam here, which I’ve actually haven’t made this recipe before, and I’m very positive I’m going to have some green tomatoes that aren’t going to fully ripen this year. So, I think that’ll be a great recipe to try. And we’ve got the classic um stuffed tomatoes here as well. Very kind of French Italian combo uh this recipe, but it’s always a fan favorite and not a lot of work to get this done. And then of course, we’ve got a panzanella. Anyways, I’m going to flip through the beautiful photos in here and get some other inspirations while I’m waiting for my tomato gratine and my pasta to finish. And I will meet you back in the kitchen. all those beautiful juices. And it is hot hot. And just so you can in case you’re not quite getting it, it’s nice and crispy on top. All those breadcrumbs. And we’ve got this beautiful juice in here from all of the tomatoes. So, what’s most important here is you do need to let it rest for like maybe like five or six minutes just so that those juices can just sort of settle for a moment. In the meantime, I’m just going to do a little garnish on this. So, I had saved my scallions that there. And so, I’m just going to put a little bit of those on top just for some greenery. This is of course optional. So just a little bit scattered over top. And then again just for finishing decor, you can put a few of the little leaves of basil around. And when the heat hits the basil leaves, the oils of that will come out and you’ll be able to smell it straight away. A little bit of basil. I think maybe one more little piece here. And if you wanted to, you could put an additional drizzle of olive oil on top. And well, quite frankly, why not? So, a touch more olive oil. So, and then that is just a beautiful thing to just bring to the table as is in the gorgeous pan. So, if I were going to serve it that way, which is directly from the pan, which is what I suggest you do, I would just serve it with some baguette like crustini or I just took another piece of that sourdough and scratch scratch scratch. Uh, just gave it a little toast and I would just rip this apart. And again, typically you would wait for this to cool a bit, but I have no patience. and just go in. And you can just like the tomatoes still have some texture, but they fall apart. I’ll show you here. And I’m just going to lift some of this up onto this little piece of bread. And so the bread will absorb all of the juices. And I want to get a little bit of the toasted bread and cheese and some of the herbs on here as well. So I’m just going to dig around here. But typically, you would just go in there with a bit of bread once it’s cooled a little bit. And there is my little bite. This is going to be exceptionally exceptionally hot. So bear with me for a moment. Oh my god. It’s so simple, but it is so ridiculously good. Obviously, the quality of your tomatoes make all the difference here, but you just get the subtle flavor, a little bit of garlic, the beautiful herbs that we put in there, the little bit of crispiness from the cheese and breadcrumb on top. Oh my god, there’s the perfect tomato sandwich. And then there’s this. So, as mentioned, this is a two for one. So, while this was in the oven, I cooked off some pasta. Just going to make a little room here. Oh, and you could also finish this with just a little bit of lemon on top and that’ll brighten everything. So, I’ve got some cooked pasta here and just took it off the heat. So, I’m just going to drag this into a bowl with a little bit of the pasta water. Not too much because our little gratine has the tomato juices in it. So, we won’t really need much. Beautiful. So, we’ve got beautiful cooked pasta in there. I’m going to go in with a bit more bameo. And then I’m going to take our gratine. And I’m not going to need quite all of this cuz it’s just going to be for a few people. So, I’m going to save some of the gratine to have with some more bread. So, and then just toss. So, now you’ve got beautiful cooked pasta with a simple just barely cooked tomato sauce. The herbs are in there, the garlic’s in there, and then you get a little bit of texture from the breadcrumbs. And then that little bit of parameo that you put in there will just sort of thicken everything together. All right, I have just put the pasta into a serving dish. I’m just going to put a bit more parameo on top. And for just a little bit of brightness, a little bit of lemon. So there you have it. Two recipes, one core ingredient, gorgeous summer tomatoes. Very simple to make. Takes hardly any time. And really, it’s just keep it as simple as possible. The tomatoes are what is elemental here. Some herbs, a little bit of aromatics. Simple, simple, simple. I am going to finish off my little bite here and then I’m going to take this big bowl of pasta over to the house and enjoy this for dinner. I will put both of these recipes up on the website by the time this video is posted. And if you haven’t already, please subscribe to my channel. And if you liked what you saw, drop me a like. I’d appreciate it. Have a great weekend. And the next video, I’m going to do what I promised and focus on stone fruit. And I’ve got a really cute and delicious stone fruit recipe for you. Bye.
Dining and Cooking