Summertime Heirloom Tomato Salad
“Real” tomatoes are a joy to behold.
I’m not talking about those genetically modified travellers that look a million dollars. Sure they may bounce when dropped but they are about as pleasing to my palate as a rubber ball.
Late summer and early autumn is the best time to buy sweet, tasty, ripe tomatoes. The farmers market stalls in Melbourne are currently laden with them. There’s the ubiquitous Roma for saucing, generic vine ripened tomatoes, hydroponically grown tomatoes, glass house tomatoes, cherry tomatoes and the royal family of tomatoes the heirloom varieties.
My favourite organic grower had eight heirloom varieties to choose from at Saturday’s market. A chose a mixed two kilos of Purple Ukraine, Japanese Black Trifele, Green Zebra and some large gnarly Beefsteak tomatoes for the ultimate tomato sandwich.
My salad received rave reviews!
1 kg mixed ripe heirloom tomatoes
Small bunch basil
2 chunky slices of dense white sourdough bread
Sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil.
Remove the crusts from the bread. Tear it into small pieces and put into a bowl.
Gently wash the tomatoes, chop them into chunks and put onto the bread
Gently tear the basil and drop onto the tomatoes. Season the salad with a generous amount of sea salt and a good grinding of black pepper. Drizzle the oil over the salad then gently toss.
Allow to rest at room temperature for 30 minutes before serving.
Serves 6 -8
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10 comments on “Summertime Heirloom Tomato Salad”
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Please Pass the Recipe by Sandra Gay is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.
Please Pass the Recipe 
– Bet that tasted amazing. As yet heirloom haven’t made it here, unless it’s possible to get them in Borough Mkt in London. I no longer live in that great city so I have to do with what’s local.
– I’ve never heard of the momotaro that Fae mentioned. I’ve just written that name down in my notebook.
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Oh, how this makes me long for tomato season here! I’ve got about another six months to go…
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It will arrive before you know it 😀
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YUM! I can almost smell this salad through my computer screen nd it is making me super jealous.
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The tomatoes have been amazing this year, probably because of the heat. XX
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i am eagerly awaiting summer here in new york. i long for the beautiful colors and flavors of freshly picked tomatoes.
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Nothing like ripe, garden-fresh tomatoes! Wish I was in Melbourne! By the way, I was in Melbourne in 2002 and I LOVED it! Beautiful salad. Cannot wait until my summer is here!!
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T-o-m-a-t-o spells summer I think. We’re having a long hot one! Glad you loved Melbourne, we do too! Love to travel, but it reaffirms what a great city we live in.
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FYI the photo didn’t attach. I haven’t seen Momotaro tomatoes, but now I know of them I’ll keep my eye open. There are so many different named varieties available now, it’s such a treat picking and choosing. I adore tomatoes as you can probably tell, every second post at the moment seems to include tomatoes!
We have a local ramen shop named Momotaro so I’ll easily remember the name.
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-Oh, medley of quality tomatoes, juice of which absorbed by the crust of the bread… I could see why your salad received rave reviews.
-Are you able to buy Japanese momotaro tomatoes in Australia? It usually looks like a peach (momo means peach) and it is one of the, if not ‘the’ highest quality tomatoes of Japan. I attempt to attach its small photo here… if it is annoying or comes out gibberish, please delete this comment and I apologies.
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