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Tomato Salad To my way of thinking, tomatoes and lettuce are not a happy combination. In a sandwich with bacon and mayonnaise, yes, but not in a salad. I want to write that they taste too much the same; that’s what my tongue tells me, even if my brain says that they have nothing in common at all. All I know is that their flavours simply don’t work well together without a host of intermediaries or some chef trick to pull the thing off. Even Greek salad is better without any lettuce, and an argument could be made that this dish too, in its best and purest form, never contained lettuce in the first place. So,
let there be lettuce salads and tomato salads. We know all about the
former; lettuce has been having a renaissance of sorts lately. But
tomatoes, conversely are facing a rough time, and it might be a good
thing to remind ourselves what a good thing they are, just sliced thick,
set out flat on a plate, and sprinkled with olive oil and seasoned with
a grind of black pepper and some sea salt. And,
to take it one step further, a pinch of fresh herbs. Parsley would do, I
suppose, but there is a special affinity between tomato and basil,
tomato and thyme, tomato and oregano – you can’t want for choices.
This time, after adding the herb, dribble the slices with some fruity
olive oil, shower them with pepper, and let them sit for a good hour or
so in a cool place (not the refrigerator) before serving them. Salt them
only when you pull up your chair to eat; otherwise it draws out the
juices and makes them flabby. The
most popular Mediterranean salad, found from Spain to Turkey, is a
combination of roughly cut chunks of tomato tossed in a bowl with small
pieces of sweet onion (a red salad onion will do nicely, although a
specialty onion like a Vidalia is a special treat) dressed with a good
fruity olive oil and some freshly squeezed lemon or lime juice, and that
grinding of pepper. This, too, should be put aside for an hour or so to
let the flavours mingle … and salted only at the last moment. This
tomato and onion combination, is also a salad that herbs will enhance
– big torn pieces of basil, a fragrant sprig of oregano. The
Portuguese add a generous amount of minced watercress and a tiny pinch
of minced coriander. The Greeks mingle a little basil and oregano with a
lot of fresh mint and stir that in with a handful of black brined
olives, again, all dressed with olive oil and a few drops of lemon juice
or good wine vinegar. I
won’t give specific proportions here because individual tolerances to
fresh herbs vary enormously. Mix them tiny pinch by pinch into your
mixture of tomatoes and onions – or tomatoes alone – until you find
the balance that suits you. The
final ingredient to this most perfect of salads is a portion of cheese.
The standard Greek salad should not blind you to the fact that crumbled
feta and tomatoes mix well together by themselves, enhanced perhaps with
a few black olives and a pinch of parsley or oregano. A slightly more
complicated version adds slivered bell peppers as well. Equally
successful is the popular Italian combination of tomatoes, basil, onion,
and mozzarella. To prepare this salad properly, the ingredients should
all be at room temperature, and mixed together with olive oil, a little
crushed garlic, and a generous amount of torn fresh basil. Season with
freshly ground pepper but again hold the salt until the end, and let the
mixture marinate together in a cool spot in the kitchen for an hour or
two. Served with a loaf of bread and a bottle of simple red wine, it is
a feast all of itself. Finally,
if there is no time to let this mixture mingle together for the required
hour, prepare it thusly. Preheat the oven to 350 F. Slice the tomatoes
as thinly as possible with a sharp knife. Then slice the cheese the same
way (mozzarella can be cut into thin slices if you dip the blade of the
knife in boiling water between slices). Cut your loaf of bread in half
lengthwise. Set one half aside for some other sue and layer the other
with the sliced tomatoes, the mozzarella, and, alternatively, a basil
leaf or a ring of sweet red onion, or both. When half the loaf is
covered, dribble it with olive oil in which a little garlic has been
mixed and grind some pepper over all. Bake in the oven just until the
bread is crusty and the cheese melted – no more than ten minutes.
Serve at once; cut into wedges with salt and olives at the side. |
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