Day 117: fierce summer sweetness

There’s always something exciting about a change of dinner plans, I find. Particularly when it’s a change in response to nice weather and involving a BBQ; embracing the most of the British summertime and dining al fresco while we can! It’s also a bonus that my making of Nigella’s Margarita Ice Cream (Day 116) didn’t scare away the sunshine. At least not yet anyway.

I was going to make my sliced tomato salad with a creamed horseradish, lemon and extra virgin olive oil dressing, until I then remembered Nigella had a recipe involving tomatoes and horseradish, too. I was in the shops at the time, so I quickly searched online and saw it required grated horseradish root. Normally, that would initiate and a huff and puff response, as there are certain ingredients - such as fresh horseradish - that I would struggle to get anywhere locally. But, I knew I had some in the fridge at home (from recently making a jar of soured cucumbers) so all I had to pick up in the shops was a punnet of cherry tomatoes (and the BBQ meat), and I could add Nigella’s Tomato and Horseradish Salad to the line-up, too. It also meant a visit to At My Table, which is always a joyous happening.

Nigella’s Tomato and Horseradish Salad

If you asked me in winter if I liked (cherry) tomatoes, my answer to you would be no. If you asked me in summer, my answer would be a resounding yes; when they’re saturated in sunshine and perfectly sweet, with just the slightest crunch as they pop in your mouth. Even the imported tomatoes over winter don’t cut it for me, so it’s a treat I gladly wait until summer for - although hubby will eat them all year round on sandwiches and in salads. This would be a fab way to breath a little life into the paler, harder, and rather bland tomatoes you can buy in winter - and that is in fact what I occasionally do using my creamed horseradish dressing (mentioned above) - but the sweetness of summer-ripe ones here just makes this dish sing.

I’m quite a fan of the cutesy sweet baby plum tomatoes, so I went for those here over the regular spherical kind. A nice change, too.

Flavour musings

When tomatoes are as divinely sweet as they are right now - saturated in summer sunshine - they are perfect with nothing more than a sprinkling of salt and cracked black (or mixed) pepper. But, tossed in with the fierce pepperiness of horseradish, the sour-sweetness of apple cider vinegar and the clean, earthiness of parsley, just makes them shine on a whole new level. The dressing is neither overpowering nor unbearably piquant; in fact, these tomatoes were so sweet I think I could have pushed the amount of horseradish I used a little further. In addition, the apple cider vinegar I have is barely vinegar at all, to be honest; it’s more of a rich, slightly sharp apple juice.

We had this to accompany our last-minute BBQ last night, but I would happily eat a plateful of these alongside nothing more than a warm, crusty French baguette.