Tomato Salad 3

Are you tired of tomatoes yet? I’m not 🙂 I’ve been enjoying them a lot lately, much more actually than you see here. I’ve had this tomato salad with steak and this tomato salad with chicken. We have had even more in between.

You see, I don’t like tomatoes in my salads. But I love tomato salads! I’m funny that way. Since my last two posts however, it seems that a lot of you are funny that way too. Nice to know I’m in such great company! 🙂

So, I’ll share one last tomato salad before I move on. I hope you don’t mind terribly. Like the first two salads, this is blazingly simple to make but delicious nonetheless…highlighting the tomatoes’ natural flavour.

Tomato Salad 3

• 250-300 grams tomatoes (different sizes and colors are good — of roughly the same volume)
• 1 small red onion
• A couple of sprigs each parsley and dill, leaves only, roughly chopped
• 5 basil leaves, roughly chopped
• Extra virgin olive oil
• Balsamic vinegar
• Sea salt
• Freshly cracked black pepper

– Slice the tomatoes in chunks – they don’t have to be the same shape, just approximately the same size.
– Slice the onion into thin half moons – as thin as you can manage.
– Toss onions, tomatoes, and chopped herbs together and dress with a couple of good glugs of olive oil and some dashes balsamic vinegar. Sprinkle with sea salt (as good a finishing salt as you have – and don’t be shy about it) and freshly cracked black pepper. I always do this to taste but if you want a guide just use 3 parts oil to 1 part vinegar, toss, taste, and adjust. Toss carefully…you don’t want battered tomatoes!

I know, I know…this is basically Tomato Salad 2 with herbs, and although almost painfully obvious (tomatoes + herbs = good), it’s still one of my favourites and I do feel I’d like to mark down my love for it here. The addition of greenery (herbs not lettuce!) really does make this an altogether different salad, adding its own layer of flavours that do a sprightly little dance, an altogether pleasant one I might add, around the tomatoes. I could eat this straight from the bowl with a spoon in one hand and a piece of crusty bread in the other.

I don’t always use the same set of herbs I’ve used here. In fact, each time I make this salad the number if herbs I use, and the combination thereof, changes. Cilantro, mint, culantro, thai basil, spring onions, chives, marjoram, chervil, lemon thyme. The possibilities are giddily endless! I usually toss in what I have on hand or fetch what I think would go well with whatever else we are eating.

Recently I bought a hefty tinapang bangus (smoked milkfish – one of my favourite types/preparations of fish ever. Period.) at the market, and we served it with the salad above, but switched all the herbs for cilantro – fish perfection! In fact, as far as we may be geographically, the cilantro version of this salad is our go-to siding for Filipino fish dishes and Mexican food (using a splash of red wine vinegar instead of the balsamic above). Gets on famously with both!

I’ve come to the end of my tomato salad series (although certainly not the end of tomato consumption!)! I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did 🙂 You can check out more ways with tomatoes over here.

For even more about tomatoes, go take a peek at the Summer Fest Party…they are celebrating tomatoes this week: Steamy Kitchen, Simmer Till Done, Matt Bites, Away to Garden, White on Rice, The Sister Project, and Gluten Free Girl.