So here's one of the great ironies of cooking for other people: sometimes I end up making things I don't even like. Not because they're not good, but because I'm actually a surprisingly picky eater for someone who loves food so much. The list of things I don't care for is awfully long -- all kinds of melons, cucumbers, eggs, fishy fish, chicken salad, canned tuna, most hams, and most definitely tomatoes, among other things.
But I'm not allergic to any of those things, I just don't like them. So if I think something would round out a meal, I'll incorporate it anyway, and that is most definitely true of summer tomatoes.
In this case, the main course of my five-course corn menu was rich and heavy, and I knew a slightly acidic, fresh-tasting vegetable counterpoint would be great.
So I cut up a few pounds of multicolored tomatoes and got them ready to go.
Then I added glugs of olive oil and red wine vinegar, chopped up a couple shallots, and seasoned with salt and pepper and fried capers and red pepper flakes. And then I called in my trusty sous chef, to whom I am married, to tweak the flavors until they came out right. Then we let it sit for a couple hours as the time for the dinner party came ever closer.
As is so often the case, there was one more step to complete at the last minute, and I am notoriously bad at remembering to take pictures at the last minute. But you finish this off with a cubed and toasted loaf of bread -- croutons, basically -- which can be any kind of crusty bread, but in this case I used onion foccacia. That tomatoey-acidic-oil juice gets soaked into the bread and the result is delicious.
(Or so I hear.)
He is a good friend that speaks well of us behind our backs.
Posted by: Belstaff Jackets Outlet | December 11, 2011 at 07:41 AM