The Mother-ship Tomato Salad on Roasted Salmon

This is a summer dish. Another homage to the sun.

And the tomatoes are faithful sun-worshipers, whose flavor will only ripen into a sweet, juicy goodness under the yellow heat of the universal fireball. What better way to showcase my displeasure over the cold, uneven weather that has plagued Montreal in the past week? A plate of sunny flavors is in order! Jamie Oliver's mothership tomato salad is my favorite summer recipe to make because it has more than one uses.

On other days, I would toss a bit of linguine into this tomato salad and finish off with some good parmesan cheese. This time I am using the tomato salad over a nicely roasted salmon dinner. The bright flavor of the tomatoes go extremely well with fish or seafood.

And I am sick of the autumn-like weather in spring!


More after the jump...





The mothership tomato salad is a vegetarian/vegan dish. It is good eaten on its own, with a bit of crusty bread, with a plate of pasta or simply chopped up as a salsa dip. So, it is your prerogative.

This Jamie Oliver recipe gives us a lot of room to expand. You can add whatever herbs you like but the most important ingredient in the recipe are the tomatoes - the rest just works itself out in the end. Get good tomatoes for this recipe, and get a variety of them. I used approximately 4-5 different kinds of yellow, orange, red, cherry, ox-hearts and medium sized tomatoes for this recipe. If you can grab some heirloom tomatoes, add it in as well. It will only add to it's deliciousness.

I made some changes to the recipe, adding whatever fresh herbs I had at hand. And this is how it goes:

The mother-ship tomato salad:
1 lb of tomatoes, different varieties
1/4 cup of good olive oil
1 garlic, minced finely
1 fresh red chili, mince finely - this is optional (you can sub with dried red pepper flakes)
2-3 tablespoon of balsamic vinegar
1/2 teaspoon of dried oregano
10 basil leaves, torn
1 teaspoon of thyme, plucked
salt and pepper to taste

Method:
1. Wash your tomatoes and cut the big ones into quarters and small ones into halves - bring them into a deep bowl.
2. Add the rest of the ingredient and toss them to combine and every tomato is coated with the herby goodness.
3. Let it sit for 15 minutes before serving. Store in the fridge until needed.


This tomato salad keeps well for up to 2 days.


Roast Salmon
1 whole salmon fillet
salt
pepper
olive oil


Method:
1. Rub salmon with salt, pepper and olive oil evenly.
2. Pan-sear the salmon, skin side down in a hot pan for 4 minutes until the skin is crisp.
3. Roast the salmon in the oven at 350 F, for another 8 minutes.


You can also pan sear your salmon until done for this dish.