Here comes the big dry
Simple but delicious, these oven-dried tomatoes taste good on pretty much everything – especially some warm, pillowy focaccia. Sam Mannering sets you up for some neat summer snacks and a perfect shared crowd-pleaser.
Don’t think that these slow-roasted beauties bear any resemblance to those acrid, leathery wee things that found their way into everything in the ‘90s, be it on a platter, in pasta, pizza, or in a panini (why did so many ‘90s foods begin with P?)
So long as your tomatoes are decent (and preferably Curious Croppers), then what you’re doing is essentially concentrating all of that beautiful flavour into something eye-rollingly delicious. Eaten on their own? Fantastic. Chopped up through pasta? Gosh, yes. (Maybe with a bit of goat’s cheese over the top). Baked over the top of focaccia? Read on.
Of course, you can use rosemary, thyme or marjoram, but I think dried oregano is just the ticket – you can find dried Greek oregano pretty easily in supermarkets now – it comes in big bunches and you can smell it a mile off – I love it.
OVEN-DRIED TOMATOES
Prep time: 10 mins Cook time: 4 hours
Ingredients
1kg good tomatoes Olive oil
Sea salt and black pepper
Method
Preheat the oven to 110C on bake function. Line a roasting tray with baking paper.
Halve the tomatoes and spread them out, cut side up.
Drizzle with a bit of olive oil and season well with salt and pepper. Scatter over the oregano.
Pop in the oven and leave to bake slowly for at least three, and up to four hours. Start to keep an eye on them after about two-and-a-half hours to make sure they don’t burn, but you should be fine. By now they should have shrunk in size by two-thirds, but still with a little juiciness inside. Don’t let them dry out completely. Allow to cool and use as you will.
These will keep in a jar, covered with oil, indefinitely in the fridge.
I like to whip up a bit of goat’s cheese or buffalo curd (Clevedon is good) with a little oil and lemon zest, smear it over the top of a platter, then combine oven-dried tomatoes with a punnet of fresh cherry tomatoes and scatter over the top of the cheese as a snack to go with a bit of bread and a few drinks. Delish.
This next recipe admittedly makes rather a lot, but I can assure you that will hardly be a problem. Halve it if you need to, it’ll be absolutely fine, it’s foolproof, absolutely superb and the perfect way to follow up making your first jars of oven-dried tomatoes.
TOMATO FOCACCIA
Prep time: 20 mins, plus 6 hours proving time
Cook time: 30 mins
Serves: Makes 1 large baking tray
Ingredients
6.5 cups strong flour
1 tsp dry yeast
2 tbsp sea salt, plus extra
3.5 cups warm water
1/3 cup olive oil, plus extra
1 quantity of oven-dried tomatoes (recipe above) Dried oregano, or fresh rosemary or thyme, to garnish
Method
Combine the flour, salt and yeast and create a well in the centre. Pour in the warm water and bring in the flour until everything is combined. Don’t worry about kneading the dough – as long everything has incorporated together. Pour over the olive oil and mix around a bit with the dough so it is covered and combined a bit with the dough. Cover and pop in the fridge for at least six hours – and up to two days.
When it’s time to bake, remove the dough from the fridge and let it come back up to room temp for half an hour or so.
Preheat the oven to 200C on fan bake. Generously grease a large shallow baking tray – mine is 18x13 inches – with lots of olive oil and, using oiled hands, pour the dough out onto the tray. Use your fingertips to spread the bread out, poking it down into the tray.
Drizzle a little more of the oil over the top and leave to rise until doubled in size. Poke it down again with your fingertips, sprinkle a generous amount of sea salt over the top, and arrange the tomatoes over the top, followed by a bit of dried oregano.
Pop into the preheated oven and bake for 20-30 minutes, until the focaccia is crisp, golden brown, cooked through and smelling wonderful. Allow to cool for as long as you can bear. This is best enjoyed the same day, although it will toast well the next day.