With the tomato glut coming to an end, these are the last chances to make Spanish Tomato Toasts using homegrown fresh ingredients.
I first had Pan amb Tomàquet (Pan con Tomate) as a child on holidays on the Costa Brava. My family and I would go each year to Peratallada, a beautiful walled mediaeval town that was relatively unspoilt in the early 1980s. We always ordered 'Pan-Tomate' as a pre-starter, much as you would order a poppadum in a British Indian restaurant.
It's only this year I feel I've found the perfect recipe.
Pan amb Tomàquet is the Catalan name for toasted bread, rubbed with garlic and soaked in the juices of fresh tomatoes. It is traditionally eaten across Spain, as a tapas course or even for breakfast. I couldn't imagine anything tastier...
The secret recipe? I've forgotten the link (It was from the New York Times, I think). But homemade bread, slightly stale, toasted and rubbed with raw cloves of garlic. Squeeze your juiciest tomatoes over the toast, and layer slices of different tomato varieties for interest on top. Smother in your best olive or rapeseed oil. From the photo it looks like I added a smear of homemade herbed butter. Put it all back in the oven... Muy sabroso y delicioso.
