Fried Tomatoes in Garlic Infused Oil

One of the dishes that I grew up with is tomatoes, halved, and seared in a frying pan, cut side down, until soft and caramelised. Is it an Australian thing? or maybe a rural Australian thing? These were served as a side dish or with a breakfast spread. They are really great with baked beans, for example.

Today I love them just as they are. Great tomatoes, good olive oil, some crunchy bread and a little salt. Perfection. They are also great on flatbread type bases – use wraps, tortillas, socca or pudla. Squish them, or not, and use on toast, in salads, on nachos type dishes and pizzas, or spread a puree and top with these yummy tomatoes. They can also be squished into a pasta sauce, or normal sauce, or Indian style chutney. Which ever way, scatter with lots of chopped herbs and spring onions (scalliions).

The flavour of this dish belies its simplicity.

This dish is also an excellent one for the BBQ.

Similar dishes include Peppers Stuffed with Tomatoes, Tomatoes Stuffed with Rice, and Red Rice cooked in Tomato Juice.

Browse all of our Tomato dishes. Or explore our Mid Spring recipes.

Urad Tamatar Dal | Urad Dal with Tomatoes and Purslane

Purslane is abundant in our garden even in Autumn. All season, since early December, it appears in different parts of the garden. We have followed it around, pulling out the plants and using the leaves. A nice way to keep it under control.

Today we have used it in an urad dal, and it turned out to add that beautiful lemony flavour to the dish as well as a little texture against the creamy urad. I hope you like this dish.

Are you looking for similar Dal recipes? Try Ghol Takatli Bhaji, Urad Dal with Onions Four Ways, Simple Monk’s Dal, Urad with Tomato, Coconut and Coriander, Urad Dal Sundal, and Urad Dal Garlic Rice. Or try Moolangi Tovve (Daikon Dal).

Also browse How to Use Purslane in Salads.

Browse all of the Urad recipes and our Indian recipes. Check out our Indian Essentials. Our Dal dishes are here. Or explore and be inspired by our easy Late Autumn recipes.

Rustic White Beans in Tomato and Onions

This dish has a vague Turkish origin. White beans – haricot or cannellini beans – are cooked and mixed with a delicious tomato-based mixture. You could make the same dish with chickpeas or lima beans.

I often make it with passata for a real saucy base, but other times will use chopped tomatoes for quite a different style. Your choice.

Similar dishes include Broccoli and White Bean Soup, Fennel and Potato with White Beans and Garlic, and Rustic, Spicy Butter Beans.

Browse all of our White Bean recipes and Turkish dishes.

Tomato Carpaccio with Spring Onion and Ginger Salsa

This beautiful salad is one of Ottolenghi’s simplest dishes. Appropriately, it is from his book Simple. You can make it in just over 5 minutes – perfect for a weekday evening, and spectacular at a weekend BBQ, picnic or lunch.

The quality of the ingredients make this dish, so you’ll need the best tomatoes – preferably home grown ones if possible – as well as the best sherry vinegar you can afford.

The salsa is glorious spooned on all sorts of dishes, from toast topped with mozzarella and/or avocado to lentil salads and pasta dishes. So double or triple the quantities when you make it. It keeps well in the fridge for up to 5 days.

As I mentioned, this is an Ottolenghi dish from Simple – note that we feel free to substitute ingredients that are not readily available in our local area. If you want to check his original recipe, see his books and Guardian column.

Similar recipes include Tomato Salad with Ginger and Lime, Tomato Salad with Parsley Oil, and Tomato and Roasted Lemon Salad.

Browse all of our Tomato Salads, and all of our Ottolenghi dishes. Our Ottolenghi dishes from Simple are here. We have written about our experiences cooking through Plenty More. Or explore our Mid Summer recipes.

Greek Village Salad

Greek salads are fabulous, are they not? Of course, even though there is a lot of controversy about whether tomatoes are included or whether cucumbers should be peeled. Should lettuce be included? The jury is out.

Like any country, the exact methods of salad making vary across the country, so it is good to relax and go with the flow. It is Summer after all, and there is nothing like a great Greek Salad (whatever version) to nibble on or to accompany a meal. I do include lettuce sometimes – it makes a nice bed for the salad.

Similar recipes include Tomato Carpaccio, Capsicum, Feta and Pistachio Spread, Baked Feta with Tomatoes, and Fava.

Browse all of our Greek dishes or all of our Salads. Or explore our Early Summer recipes.

Tomato Lemon Rasam

Rasam – I cannot say enough about this wonderful Tamil dish that wakens the digestive system and enlivens the palate. We have quite a number of different recipes. Today’s is one that includes some toor dal, is flavoured with tomato and uses lemon as its tart/sour flavour. It is similar to but much simpler than this Mysore Rasam. We use rasam powder today rather than make a fresh spice mix.

Similar recipes include Horsegram Rasam, Saar, Rasam with Curry Leaves, and Tomato Rasam with Lime Juice.

Browse all of our Rasam recipes. All of our Indian recipes are here, and our Indian Essentials are here. Or explore our Late Summer recipes.

Tomato-Garlic Soup with Tamarind and Spices, with a Lemon Chilli Yoghurt

This is a soup unashamedly based on a South Indian classic – Tomato Rasam. Tomato Rasam is a soupy broth based on tomatoes, tamarind and tangy, hot spices. It is sipped and also ladled over rice, so cannot be equated with a Western soup. However we can take the flavours of Rasam – the tomatoes, the tang, the spicy heat – and with this inspiration create a more Western style soup to awaken the taste buds and enliven the palate.

This soup is full of garlic, ginger, black pepper and turmeric, all good for Winter colds and general immune system. It’s one of the soups that we make when laid low with a Winter lurgy.

Tinned tomatoes can be used if the fresh ones lack flavour. We would normally serve it with raita, plain yoghurt, cream or coconut milk but today chose to make it without any of these to be more friendly to those in the household with colds. It is just as good without.

Similar recipes include Horsegram Rasam, Tomato Shorba, Tomato Soup with Lemongrass and Ginger, and Tomato and Dal Soup.

Browse all of our Rasam recipes and all of our Indian Soups. All of our Soups are here. All of our Indian recipes are here, and our Indian Essentials are here. Or explore our Early Winter recipes.

Kachumber | Chuchumber

Kachumber is a Hindi word for chopped into small pieces. It can mean any Indian salad made with a few salad vegetables that have been finely sliced or chopped and served with a wedge of lemon. Here we have the most commonly made kachumber – tomatoes, onions, cucumbers and herbs. The dressing is always lemon or lime juice and black pepper, although vinegar can be added in the Parsi version.

I have other Kachumber recipes here, but this one is simple. Quick and simple. I thought that I would include it because often that is what we want and need. It is as delicious as ever. I hope you enjoy it.

I’ve made Kachumbers using the chopping blade of a food processor, by grating some of the ingredients and by chopping by hand. Use which ever method suits you on the day.

You might like to read What is a Kachumber? And our Collection of Kachumber Salads.

Similar recipes include Apple and Grape Kachumber, Daikon and Carrot Kachumber, Chickpea (Channa) Chaat and Channa Chaat on Kovalam Beach.

You might like to try other Indian Salads and Indian Snacks. All of our Indian recipes are here, and our Indian Essentials are here. Other Late Summer recipes can be found here.

Eggplant, Potato and Tomato

I love a good brunch, right? Lazy mornings, catching up with friends, relaxed, easy, informal and chatty – untroubled, comfortable being. It’s a long meal that takes up a large chunk of the middle of the day. So very delightful with a touch of indulgence.

This is a lovely brunch dish. The sort that you can centre your brunch spread around. Everything else should come out of the fridge, cupboard or bakery: bread and real butter, home made jams, fresh coffee and full cream milk, fruit juice from the fruit in the trees in the garden, sliced fresh fruit or perhaps baked fruit, a few cheeses (including a blue with bite), overnight oats or bircher muesli, yoghurt and some buttery pastries. This, plus the weekend papers and some good gossip, is all you need to spend half a day in unadulterated bliss.

Of course, it also makes a great supper dish – I might make it on a cold Spring evening. Who doesn’t want something deep fried on a cold night?

There’s a fair bit of preparation involved in this but it is a stunning, unusual dish that you can easily get hooked on. There is also quite a bit of washing up!

This is an Ottolenghi dish of course – it takes a while to make and has 8 or 9 processes. He floats eggs on top of the fried vegetables – I use burrata, bocconcini or buffalo mozzarella. Actually the dish is somewhat similar to Mixed Vegetables with Green Chilli Oil, another dish from Ottolenghi.

This is a recipe from Plenty More – we are cooking our way through this book. We feel free to substitute ingredients that we don’t eat (e.g. eggs), and ones that are not readily available in our local area.

If you are keen to reduce the frying in this dish, bake the eggplant until cooked. There won’t be any loss of flavour. You could also bake the slices of potato.

I couldn’t make this dish look nice, but boy, the combination of potato, tahini sauce, eggplant and tomato is so. very. good.

Similar dishes include Sweet and Sour Leeks with Burrata, Slow Cooked Tomato Chickpeas with Burrata, and Purslane Salad with Burrata.

Browse all of our Brunch and Breakfast dishes, and all of our Ottolenghi dishes. Our Ottolenghi dishes from Plenty More are here. We have written about our experiences cooking through this book. Or explore our Mid Spring recipes.

Spicy Baked Black Chickpeas, Eggplants and Tomatoes

Black chickpeas (Kala Chana) are very common in India but not so common outside. There are two types of chickpeas – the larger light tan Kabuli chickpea, the one that is commonly used here, and the variously coloured Desi chickpea. They are green when picked early then vary through tan or beige, to speckled, dark brown and black. 75% of world production is of the smaller desi type. The larger type, also called garbanzo bean,  was introduced into India in the 18th century.

Desi chana are smaller and darker with a rough coat; its other names include kala chana (black chickpea) or chholaa boot. It is this variety that is hulled and split to make chana dal.

Kala Chana have a dark and earthy taste, and aren’t quite as soft and creamy as their kabuli chana counterpart. But that makes them unique and especially delicious in Wintery dishes.

Today I bake them in a spicy tomato saucy and layered with roasted eggplant and tomatoes. Served with rice, a pickle and a herby yoghurt dish, it makes a wonderful meal. There are similar dishes made with the karbuli type of chickpeas from the Middle East and beyond – Falesten has a recipe for Musaqa’a which is also worth making. This recipe is quite similar.

Similar dishes include Chana Madra, Baked Eggplant with Cheese and Tomatoes, Eggplant and Zucchini Bake with Chickpeas, and Baked Garlicky Eggplant.

Browse all of our Chickpea recipes and all of our Eggplant dishes.