KEY POINTS:
Plump red tomatoes taste of sunshine and, married with goat's cheese, become heavenly.
Tomatoes or pommes d'amour, love apples, are so fabulous and interesting that French chefs concoct whole summer menus around them and I dedicate an entire class at my culinary week in the south of France
to them.
The Italian economy is based on tomatoes so there's no reason why yours shouldn't be. One of the most delicious recipes involving tomatoes I've ever tasted was paired with goat's cheese.
Happily, we have access to lots of soft goat's cheese in New Zealand - now both homemade and French.
One of my favourites is the French Soignon spreadable goat's cheese. It is fantastic on toast with honey and red pepper; served with grilled lamb; spread on the base of vegetable tarts; or mixed with tuna and served with a tomato salad.
It gives everything it touches that slightly almond/aromatic/lemon je ne sais quoi. Fresh goat's cheese slides over the palate like ice cream and has myriad uses: stirred into pasta or sauces at the last minute; mixed with garlic, parsley, chives and chervil; or eaten with crystallised fruit or jam. In some parts of the world it is eaten with sugar and cognac.
We love tomatoes which taste the way we imagined tomatoes tasted in our reinvented pasts - juicy, sweet, acid and full of sunshine. Tomatoes that are still tasting of the vine and are almost still warm from the earth.
If there's one thing you should grow, even if you have the tiniest windowsill, it's tomatoes. I'm growing cherry ones in my garden and the smell and taste is unbelievable.
There's absolutely no point in eating under-ripe tomatoes - they must always be super-fat, juicy and ripe. If you are making a sauce and don't have dark red, ripe tomatoes, use tinned ones. At Nosh they stock 400g cans of pomodorini (cherry tomatoes), which are delicious and cute in fish sauces and soups.
Tomatoes come in all shapes, sizes, breeds and colours, so experiment until you find what you like. Usually, the uglier they are the tastier.
The colourful nicoise salad is dependent on tomatoes; red peppers halved, stuffed with chopped tomatoes and roasted are heavenly; thin, flat tomato tarts with goat's cheese spread on the pastry first is refined; and tomato salads made with blackened orange peppers, cumin and fresh mint is redolent of Morocco. For breakfast, rub your toast with a piece of cut garlic then put on a very ripe sliced tomato and sprinkle with salt and pepper.
In today's recipe for goat's cheese and oven-roasted tomato charlotte, the tomato flavour is intensified by roasting. It can be made in one large dish or six small ramekins.
If made in smaller containers, it takes less time to cook. Unlike a soufflé, a charlotte is not scary and you don't have to have your family lined up, worried that it might flop if they are not paying attention.
You absolutely must drink rosé and eat a crusty baguette with this.
TOMATO, ANCHOVY AND THYME TART
Serves 4
1 sheet rolled shortcrust pastry with 1 egg yolk whisked with 2 tsp milk for eggwash
1 tbsp tapenade
2 tbsp mascarpone
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
4 tomatoes, sliced
3-4 anchovies
Fresh thyme
1. Preheat oven to 200C. Grease an oven tray or use baking paper. Lay pastry on the tray, fold edges over and brush with the eggwash.
2. Mix tapenade and mascarpone, season and spread over pastry.
3. Cover with tomatoes then scatter with small pieces of anchovy and thyme.
4. Season and bake for about 20 minutes or until the pastry is golden and cooked underneath. Serve with salad.
- Detours, HoS