Recipe: Tomato Salad Recipe »
This tomato salad recipe is one of the best tomato salads I've ever eaten. Made with ripe summer tomatoes, fresh peach and ricotta, it is perfectly balanced and tastes just like it came from a restaurant - because it did! I was lucky enough to get this tomato salad recipe from a renowned restaurant and I am sharing this delicious side dish with you today. This is a pushy recipe Dear Reader.
This tomato salad comes from Humbug restaurant in Newcastle. It's a very popular restaurant with a huge following and matches interesting varietels of wine with some incredibly tasty food. We recently ate there during the preview of Newcastle Food month. Even though we had been eating all day long as I was part of a media group tasting, the tomato salad was a standout. Although we were totally full we devoured it. For Newcastle Food Month they're holding a street food fiesta on April 14 @ 3:00 pm - 9:00 pm.
I didn't think that they would part with the recipe but chef Mike Portley shared it readily which was very nice (along with another recipe that I will try of their signature ssam). He did preface it by saying "the defining factor of how good this salad is, ultimately comes down to the flavour and texture of the tomatoes you can source" but I will say that you don't have to go on any hunting expeditions except for the shiso leaves (which we happen to grow in our garden). I've tried this with supermarket medley tomatoes and it works although in the restaurant they have all sorts of lovely heirloom tomatoes. If you have those then even better for you. Everything else can be picked up easily.
Tips For Making Tomato Salad
1 - Save this recipe for summer when tomatoes are at their best. Use great quality, ripe tomatoes. We have a couple of weeks left!
2 - Use whole heirloom or a medley mix of cherry tomatoes
3 - Shiso gives this salad a gorgeous flavour but can be difficult to find. Although different, basil also works if you can't get shiso.
4 - White balsamic is also called white condiment and can be found at the supermarket. The original recipe uses aged white balsamic vinegar so if you have that, use it here.
5 - The original recipe uses ricotta but I like to puree it to make it even smoother in texture. I usually process a small tub of ricotta and keep it in the fridge so that I can make this recipe every night over a few nights. It pairs well with meat, pizza or pasta.
- Other Tomato Salad Recipes
- Peach Tomato Caprese Salad
- Frozen Tomato Burrata Salad
- Tomato and Strawberry Salad
- Burrata Salad With Tomatoes
- Panzanella Salad
So a little health update from me sort of related to this recipe. After a few months of seeing my cardiologist I had undergone some blood tests and a cardioangiogram. I actually didn't realise that Asian people really differ from other races in terms of their health. He explained that Asian people are prone to fatty liver because any fat is stored viscerally (around the organs) while in Caucasian people it is stored subcutaneously (under the skin). And while Asian people might look skinny or slim they could be hiding issues so that is why he got me to do the cardioangiogram. This is where they inject you with a dye and you get under the MRI machine and they see if there are any blockages in your arteries.
I went to see him to get my results. When I knocked on the door and came in he was sitting behind his desk looking at his computer with his head in his hands. "Have you been doing anything different?" he asked me.
"Ummm I'm eating lots of avocadoes and fish oils," I stammered because why the serious face?
"Because these results are very, very good," he said swinging around his monitor so that I could see them. All of the results from the blood test were exactly where they needed to be. Then he pointed at a figure that said 0. The MRI showed that I had zero blockages in the arteries around my heart. Honestly nobody was more surprised than me.
"Do you want the bad news?" he asked and I nodded. My liver was showing signs of the start of fatty liver. I don't drink much at all but what I do is I love carbs and that is where I get into issues. I love pasta, bread, noodles and rice - pizza is one of my favourite foods! And I also have to cut down on things like potatoes, sweet potato, corn and pumpkin. He said salads and lean meats are good so this salad was the first thing that I made and I served them with chicken tenderloins. So Dear Reader, I'll still be loving carbs but just from a distance.
So tell me Dear Reader, are you on a special diet? Do you have foods that you are supposed to avoid?
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