TOMATO SALAD

Well, seriously, it’s not that I purposely wanted to make tomato salad. I had so much tomatoes in my fridge and I had been using lots of them when I cooked Mexican and Turkish dish. We juice the tomatoes too, but I just want to clean up the fridge and I wanted to use up the tomatoes like..soon!

So, I found this tomato salad recipe from Anthony Bourdain’s Les Halles cookbook. His advice before you get excited and go make this dish is “If you can’t get a good tomato, don’t make the damn dish. If the tomatoes are unripe, or flavorless greenhouse jobs, or simply not tomatoes of noble birth, then wait until you find some good ones” Get it ? btw, the “damn” wasn’t from me 😉

It’s quite funny when I read through his Les Halles cookbook (Btw, Les Halles means What the Hell Is It?) So much yelling. As if he’s yelling at me and trying to get me to understand the basic of cooking lol! but from what I understand, that’s the way it is and the man really knows what he’s talking about!

TOMATO SALAD (6 servings)

2 lb heirloom tomatoes, cored and cut into wedges
Coarse sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
3 shallots, thinly sliced
1 garlic clove, slightly crushed
2 Tbsp red wine vinegar
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 sprig fresh parsley, coarsely chopped

COOKING METHOD:

1. Degorge the tomatoes by placing them, already cut into wedges, into a colander and sprinkling them with 1/2 Tbsp of seal salt and 1/2 Tbsp of black pepper. Let sit for 30 minutes, then brush off and remove the seeds

2. Place the sliced shallots into a separate colander and sprinkle with sea salt. Let sit for 30 minutes, then brush off the salt and squeeze out any excess water

3. Prick the garlic with the fork and rub the clove inside the salad bowl. Add the olive oil and the vinegar and whisk. Season with salt and a little pepper. Add the tomatoes, the shallots, and the parsley leaves. Toss with the red wine vinegar. Arrange on plates and sprinkle a little fresh black pepper over the top