Monday 19 July 2010

Oven Roasted Cherry Tomatoes



These beautiful jewels of cherry tomatoes come from Adrian Izzard, the PhD bio chemist turned organic farmer of salads in Cambridgeshire, who sells in farmers markets all over London. All through the winter Adrian produces a huge range of salads most of us have never heard of, such as mizuna, claytonia, Komatsuma, tatsoi, green in snow (fiercely hot mustard leaves), to name but a few from his extra ordinary range.

Having a jar of oven dried tomatoes to call on for dramatically upping the game on virtually anything is a great cook's secret. Just adding a few to a tomato sauce will deepen and enhance the flavour.

Also a perfect solution to dealing with a glut of tomatoes. Never mind how beautiful these look.




Wash to remove any dust or mud





Cut in half, sprinkle with some sea salt flakes, adorn with thyme and a very light anointing of olive oil, maybe a bayleaf or two and into the oven on 50C for 12 hours



12 hours later, the jewels are now little powerhouses of the most intense and concentrated tomatoness


Into a steralised glass jar, cover with olive oil and put in a clove or so of garlic and a sprig of fresh thyme





8 comments:

  1. Oh, it looks beautiful and delicious. I will have to restrain myself from picking the tray emtpy before they go into the oven, because that is gorgeous looking too..
    ronelle

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  2. I love cherry tomatoes! I don't think I've ever seen them sundried or oven roasted, sounds delicious and summery.

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  3. I love oven-roasted tomatoes. They make a really great filling for sandwiches. They also go well with pesto and goat cheese on top of crostini.

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  4. Sarah...I couldn't agree with you more...those are truly jewels...especially when they are prepared with such care.
    I roast tomatoes quite often, although never for quite that long. I will experiment with this. It sure must smell lovely at your home ;o)
    Thanks for having come for a visit...great way to introduce yourself.

    Flavourful wishes,
    Claudia

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  5. The extra long roast is so that the oven can be at 50C ; it's the nearest thing to sun dried. Long, low and ultra slow always is the the best. The flavour is so super concentrated. Next time I will stack the oven. They didn't last very long!

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  6. Those roasted cheery tomatoes look so good! I'm afraid that if I made them they would not make it to the jar. :)

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  7. Keven, if you look at the photo, you may notice I shot an aerial photo, to disguise the fact that I had eaten most before getting to the jar. They did not stay in the jar very long either!

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  8. If I can part with some of my cherry tomatoes from the garden I will definitely love the result of the long, slow bake. Thank you for the idea. I always thought I would have to buy sun-dried with our climate! Fabulous.

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