Daylight Savings Tomato Party

To celebrate the coming of Summer I decided to give one of Yotam Ottolenghi's recipes a go yesterday. Since it was called a "Tomato Party" it seemed very appropriate for this very exciting time of the year.

I made a couple of mistakes but turned the recipe into my own adaptation! So here it goes:

Tomato Party with Crispy Couscous Croutons

Adapted from Yotam Ottolenghi's book 'Plenty'


Ingredients
125g coucous
olive oil
1 cup of quinoa (He suggestes 150g Fregola 'Giant Couscous' but I didn't have a chance to get any).
300g vine ripened tomatoes, quartered
3/4 tsp brown sugar
1 tsp balsamic vinegar
150g yellow cherry tomatoes, halved
1 small green tomato cut into thin wedges
100g tomberries or halved cherry tomatoes.
(I couldn't find all this on the day so I bought a 'Tomato Medley' from Thomas Dux).
2 tbsp chopped oregano
2 tbsp chopped tarragon
2 tbsp chopped mint
1 garlic clove, crushed
salt and pepper to taste

Method
Preheat the oven to 170℃.

Put the couscous in a bowl with a pinch of salt and a splash of olive oil. Then cover with 150ml of boiling water, stir and cover the bowl with cling film. Set aside for 12 minutes, then remove the cling film and separate the grains with a fork. Set aside to cool.

Now here I made my first mistake - I over cooked the couscous, so it became really gluggy and all stuck together. So I grabbed a shallow baking tray, lined it with baking paper and spread the couscous out evenly over the tray.  I then sprinkled with rock salt, white pepper and a little olive oil and put it in the oven. Once this is golden brown across the top, remove from the oven and let it cool before chopping it into crispy, couscous croutons - which I then added to the salad for some extra crunch!

Remake the couscous by repeating the above instructions - remember not to leave it any longer than the 12 minutes or you'll be making lots of couscous croutons!!

Next cook the Quinoa - this is the best way of cooking it. Absolutely flawless. Then leave this to cool completely.

Meanwhile, spread the tomatoes over a baking tray and sprinkle with the sugar, some salt and pepper and drizzle the balsamic vinegar and olive oil all over. Place in the oven for 20 minutes and then increase the temperature to 200℃ for a further 12 minutes.

Here's where I made mistake number two. Yotam actually suggests doing the large vine ripened tomatoes for the first 20 minutes, then adding the yellow tomatoes - keeping the others raw. I just put the whole lot in, which meant there was A LOT of excess juices.... when I turned the oven up to 200℃ I emptied all the juices into a saucepan, added the crushed garlic and put it on a low heat reduce slowly for about 10 minutes. Let the tomato and garlic reduction cool.

Remove the tomatoes from the oven and set aside to cool.

Then I strained the tomato and garlic reduction from the stove into a jar and added 1:1 olive oil to make the dressing. Just season to taste with a little salt and pepper if you need - I found I didn't have to it was beautiful on its own.

Put the couscous, quinoa and chopped herbs into a bowl and toss. Then add the tomatoes and gently mix. Taste for seasoning. And add the dressing.

Et voila! A beautiful, refreshing Spring Tomato Party with Crispy Couscous Croutons!

Enjoy!