Pimped-up Bruschetta

Hiya,

I have been playing a bit with different textures that tomatoes can develop. So there is the tomato as such, so raw, you can cook them and blitz the result to a soup, so they become silky smooth, or you can dry them. You can also roast them and make a slow-roasted tomato soup out of them (recipe coming up soon).
I ended up with almost 3 kg tomatoes from the market and started of with drying them.


Oven-Dried Tomatoes

Set the oven to 100-120 °C (or lower if you use a fan). Then oil a backing tray lightly with olive oil. Cut small tomatoes in half, bigger ones in quarters or even eights. In my experience, plum tomatoes or small cherry tomatoes work best. Then set them cut-side up on the baking tray. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and some dried herbs like basil, rosemary or thyme. And now put them in the oven and forget about them for at least 3 hours, sometimes even longer. Dry to your own taste, I prefer it, if they have a little bit moisture left.
Fill them hot in a mason jar and add garlic and fresh herbs. Fill up with good quality olive oil. Store in the fridge. They keep for weeks, but never in my fridge :-)

So, after having made a huge amount of dried tomatoes, now to an all-time favorite, bruschetta.
The classic version doesn't include the dried tomatoes, but I prefer a mixture of fresh and dried tomatoes, think textures and taste.

Pimped-up Bruschetta

Ingredients:

• 4 slices of ciabatta or similiar bread
• 4 small or 2 large tomatoes
• a small handfull of dried tomatoes, chopped into small chunks
• 1 clove of garlic, finely diced (less or more, depending on your taste)
• 1/2 red onion, finely diced
• olive oil (take from the dried tomato container)
• balsamic vinegar (I prefer the white one here)
• fresh basil leaves
• salt, pepper

And how to make them:

• either put up a griddle pan and turn the hob on on the highest mark or turn on the grill of your oven
• slighlty oil the ciabatta slices on one side, when pan/oven is really hot, grill for a few minute until slighlty charred but still soft inside
• meanwhile, take a knife and slightly score the outside of the fresh tomatoes with a cross
• pour boiling water over them until the peel comes of, then drain and quickly wash with cold water
• peel and de-seed, then cut into small chunks
• mix with the dried tomatoes, the garlic and the onion
• add 1 tbs of olive oil, 1/2 tbs of balsamic vinegar and season with salt and pepper
• chop up the basil leaves and mix
• now top the olive-side of the bread with the mixture

That's it. A simple but so good starter or even a light lunch. If you want to add a bit more substance, you can also add some mozzarella or mushrooms (they need to fry first or be very finely sliced, so that the marinade basically cooks them). I prefer however the all-tomato version...