The Best Part of Summer is Tomato Bread
It’s really a Spanish tapa called “pan con tomate,” but it’s juicyness far outweighs either name.
I wait all year to eat tomatoes like this.
Every year in the summer, I find excuses to eat more tomatoes. Panzanellas, caprese salads, fried green tomatoes, “tomato water” from well-strained tomato pulp are among my favorite methods to eat them, but I generally can’t get enough. The crowned jewel of my summer diet is my famed tomato toast.
My partner lovingly calls it tasty bread! My clients call it bruschetta, and the Spanish call it pan con tomate. There’s a long history of other people putting tomatoes on toast, so there’s no reason you shouldn’t get on board.
What makes my tomato toast especially delicious? I shallow fry the bread in a pan with a good amount of fat rather than toasting it in the toaster or an oven. This gives the bread a solid crunch, nutty flavor, and a barrier between the bread and the tomato juice to keep the bread from getting soggy.
This recipe is a perfect example of intuitive cooking because it relies entirely on your instincts to taste and season your food. Tomatoes taste very different from week to week in the summer, so adjusting the amount of acid, salt, and oil means listening to your senses.
Pan Con Tomate
Ingredients:
1-2 heirloom tomatoes
Olive oil
Salt
Pepper
Vinegar (preferably sherry, red wine vinegar, or white wine vinegar)
Bread (preferably a baguette-- something crusty that you can cut into thick slices)
Box grater
Saute pan
Garlic
Procedure:
Use the large holes on your box grater to grate your tomatoes into a bowl.
Add a good glug of olive oil, a hefty amount of salt, pepper, and your vinegar of choice. You may also add 1 clove of crushed garlic if desired. Taste and adjust your seasoning until it is delicious, flavorful, and acidic. Let the mixture rest while you toast your bread.
Add a considerable glug of olive oil to a saute pan and turn your heat to medium,. Slice your bread thickly. If I am using a baguette, I slice my baguettes in half lengthwise to resemble little boats.
Place your bread cut side down in the saute pan. It will likely soak up all the oil-- make sure it does so fairly evenly, checking for dry spots on the bread and adding more oil if necessary.
Toast your bread until it is a chestnut brown. I don't even mind if it gets a little scorched in this case! The juices from the tomato will soften it up later.
Toast the other side of the bread if it is also cut (unlike baguette), again adding more oil if necessary.
If desired, rub one side of the toasted bread with the cut side of a half a clove of garlic.
Spoon a generous amount of the tomato mixture over the bread. It will absorb the juices if it sits for two minutes. Finish with maldon salt and black pepper if desired.
