Tomato summer pudding — a Ravinder Bhogal recipe

We’re entering tomato season. Proper tomatoes, in all their grassy, sweet and tart glory, don’t bear any resemblance to those gloomy supermarket ones that barely remember life outside a fridge. At the farmers’ market, there is a rainbow riot of them — red, yellow, orange, purple, miniature ones as tiny as olives, others gnarled and misshapen like small pumpkins.

Over the summer, their price creeps down and I binge on them; a light tomato curry, fragrant with ginger, a crisp tomato and anchovy tart, refreshing gazpacho or loops of bucatini tangled with a raw tomato and caper sauce.

But it’s the simplicity of bread and tomatoes that I enjoy most of all. On a recent trip to Barcelona, I ate pan con tomate every day. Stale bread is toasted and rubbed with garlic and then generously topped with the silken flesh of grated tomatoes before being doused with good olive oil and a sprinkle of sea salt. In Tuscany, panzanella — made from stale bits of bread, buxom tomatoes, basil, red wine vinegar and olive oil — is perfection.

We may not have a tradition of lavish tomato dishes in this country, but we do have a frugal culture that sees stale bread as an opportunity, not a waste. For this recipe I turned to a classic British summer pudding for inspiration. Berries are swapped for the best tomatoes steeped in herbs, garlic, olive oil and sherry vinegar, and then placed in a mould lined with bread dipped in the marinade and some of the puréed tomato pulp. As they sit, they leach out their juices and revive and infuse the bread.

This dish is best enjoyed in the garden with a chilled glass of good white wine.

Tomato summer pudding

Serves 4

1. In a large bowl, mix together the olive oil, vinegar, sugar and seasoning. Add the heritage tomatoes, garlic and oregano, mix well and leave to macerate at room temperature for 45 minutes.

2. In the meantime, purée the peeled tomatoes in a blender until soupy. Pass through a sieve using a wooden spoon or a spatula to push through the pulp. Discard the seeds.

3. Strain half the liquid from the macerated tomatoes and mix with the puréed tomatoes in a shallow bowl. Briefly dip the slices of ciabatta bread into this passata mixture and use them to line the base and sides of a 1.5 litre pudding bowl. Set enough aside to create a lid.

4. Remove the oregano sprigs from the heritage tomatoes and add the torn basil leaves. Mix well and then fill the bread-lined bowl with tomato mixture, along with all the remaining juices, packing it down firmly. Top with remaining soaked bread slices.

5. Cover with baking paper, then cover with a plate that fits just inside the bowl and weigh down with a couple of tins. Refrigerate for at least six hours or overnight.

6. To serve, carefully run a knife around the inside of the bowl to loosen the pudding. Invert on to a large plate and gently remove the bowl. 

Ravinder Bhogal is chef-patron of Jikoni. Follow Ravinder on Instagram @cookinboots and Twitter @cookinboots

Follow @FTMag on Twitter to find out about our latest stories first