CREATE: Slow-Roasted Tomatoes

A simple recipe for you to eat, or do with, however you please.

One of the easiest and most delicious things is a fresh tomato in the height of summer, drizzled with olive oil, and sprinkled with sea salt and freshly cracked black pepper. Sometimes I eat it with some bread, ripped into pieces and pressed into the tomato juices that drip into the bottom of the bowl.

The second easiest and most delicious things is a bunch of tomatoes, cut or not, tossed on a baking sheet, and slow-roasted with olive oil until all the flavours concentrate - the sweetness gets sweeter, the tanginess gets tangier, and the umami (yes tomatoes have umami) gets….well, gets richer and more savoury. (“Umami-ier” was not a word. I checked.)

Generally when I roast vegetables, they are done in a hot oven (425-450F) because I want to get a good caramelization on the outside, while not over cooking the vegetable and keeping some of its fresh texture. However, tomatoes is one that does very well with slow-roasting on low heat (250-275F), which is essentially dehydrating with heat, cooking out the moisture and drying the food. If you kept roasting, the tomatoes would eventually turn into something akin to a sun dried tomato, but caramelized and sticky, which is also delicious, so you pick how far you’d like to take them.

It’s really endless on how you could use them, and they keep in the refrigerator for a few days so you can roast many and eat them over the weekdays in all the iterations you can imagine.

- drizzled with honey, thyme, and sprinkled with Maldon salt and pepper
- tossed with fresh pasta, fresh basil, good olive oil and roasted garlic
- on an apéro platter
- as a side dish to a côte de boeuf or on holiday menu
- on a traditional English breakfast with beans and eggs
- on labneh with toasted bread (labneh recipe here)
- or as I’ve done above, in a niçoise-inspired salad – with cucumbers (I didn’t have green beans), olives, good pieces of oil-packed tuna, parsley, toasted bread (I didn’t have new potatoes) and a soft-boiled egg. I drizzled olive oil and lemon juice on top but you could easily use red wine vinegar or even tomato juice if you like.

Really, it’s whatever you’re craving to eat, and whatever makes you happy. Bon appétit.