Ingredients
| 1.8kg tomatoes of various sizes, colours and flavours (anything goes) | |
| a few peeled & quartered shallots; spring onions; whole scallions; or thick wedges of peeled red, yellow, or white onions; or even longish slabs of leeks | |
| 4-6 garlic cloves, smashed | |
| a few sprigs of thyme, marjoram or oregano | |
| a few whole dried chillies (chile de árbol, New Mexican, guajillo, etc.) | |
| kosher salt | |
| 250ml olive oil, possibly more |
Aside from eating a tomato simply with salt or in a salad, this is quite possibly the best use of tomatoes come late summer. Roasted in a not-insignificant amount of oil, the tomatoes become sweet and shrivelled, blistered and jammy. Don’t feel precious about the amount of olive oil you’re about to pour – use the tomato-y liquid to cook beans, start a roast chicken or season ricotta cheese for a little snack.
Instructions
| 1. | Preheat the oven to 150°C. |
| 2. | Prepare the tomatoes. Small tomatoes go in whole, medium ones get halved or quartered, and larger ones get cut into 5cm (2 inch) pieces. |
| 3. | Pile the tomatoes in a large casserole (Dutch oven) or other oven-safe baking dish (like a 23 x 33cm Pyrex, for example; avoid cast iron because it’ll react poorly with the acidity of the tomatoes). |
| 4. | Add the shallots (or onions), garlic, herbs and dried chillies to the pot and season everything with salt. |
| 5. | Drizzle with a good amount of olive oil, and no, I don’t mean several tablespoons – I am talking at least 250ml. You will reuse this oil, so don’t worry about wasting. You’re not poaching the tomatoes in the oil, but you do want to give them enough to swim in as they break down while roasting. |
| 6. | If you’re doing this in a casserole, put the lid on; otherwise, cover the baking dish with foil. |
| 7. | Pop them into the oven, letting them go for 2-21⁄2 hours. |
| 8. | Remove the lid (or foil) and let them go another hour or so until the tops have started to caramelise slightly and all the tomatoes look past jammy and into shrivelled territory – not quite sun-dried, but concentrated, wrinkled versions of themselves. |
| 9. | (If you’re doing a smaller batch – say, 900g – you can roast them uncovered, without a lid, for about the same amount of time.) |
This is an edited
extract from
Something from
Nothing by Alison
Roman, published
by Quadrille.
Photography by
Chris Bernabeo.