Nigel Slater's tomato recipes | Food (2024)

I baked tomatoes this week – handsome ones the size of a clenched fist – and filled them with brown and white crabmeat pepped up with mustard, cayenne and Worcestershire sauce. The stuffing was rich and the tomato fresh and slightly sharp in that curious way that happens when even the ripest tomato is baked. It was a summer's day dish we ate outside.

I used to make a puff-pastry tart with tomatoes on a layer of basil pesto. It is everywhere now and I certainly wasn't the first to make it, but I have looked at it again recently and made some worthwhile changes. The pesto hasgone and in its place is adazzling, loud red paste of peppers and pine kernels. There is still garlic in there, always happy inthe company of cooked tomatoes. It is change that feels right for a blazing summer's day.

My first attempt at making it saw me halving, seeding and baking the peppers then skinning them while they were warm, as if they were being prepared for a salad. Truth told, once they were blitzed to a coarse purée with garlic and pine kernels they might as well have been out of a jar.

I shall continue to bake the tomatoes for salads (with anchovies, capers and a little basil, perhaps), but for this particular recipe I would open a jar.

I made more paste than I needed – as does the recipe below – and was very glad I did. The brick-red sauce was spread on hot toast, used as a dip and smeared on fillets of grilled mackerel then slipped back under the heat for a minute or two.

Tomato and red pepper tart

If you prefer, you can make this as one large, rectangular tart, in which case you will need a few tomatoes. I also sometimes make an aubergine version, using the pulp from roast aubergines, seasoned with thyme and garlic, and cover it with slices of fried or grilled aubergine. Makes 6.

For the tarts:
tomatoes 4, medium-sized
puff pastry 320g
egg a little, beaten
olive oil a little

Toast the pine kernels in a hot, shallow pan until golden and fragrant, then tip them into the bowl of a food processor. Add the stale bread, canned peppers drained of their brine, the sherry vinegar and garlic, and blitz to asmoothish paste, pouring in a couple of tablespoons of olive oil as you go. Taste and add salt and pepper as necessary. Scrape into a bowl and set aside in a cool place.

Set the oven at 200C/gas mark 6. Roll the pastry thinly – about 4mm in thickness – then cut six rounds about the size of alarge saucer and place them on a baking sheet.

Score a wide rim around the outside of each one about 1 cm from the edge, taking care not to cut through the pastry, then brush the rim only with alittle of the beaten egg.

Spoon a thick layer of the pepper paste in the centre of each tart, being careful to avoid the rim. Slice the tomatoes thickly, then place the slices on top of the pepper sauce.

Brush with a thin film of olive oil and bake for 20-25 minutes, until the pastry is crisp. Eat warm.

Baked tomatoes with crab

beefsteak tomatoes 4
white crabmeat 250g
brown crabmeat 150g
double cream 3 tbsp
grain mustard 2 tbsp
Dijon mustard 2 tbsp
ground cayenne 1 tsp
Worcestershire sauce 2 tsp

Slice the top from each tomato (it will act as a lid) then, with a teaspoon, remove the seeds and pulp from each fruit. Season thehollows with salt and pepper. Set the oven at 180C/gas mark 4.

Put the crabmeats into a bowl, check carefully for any pieces of shell, add the cream, the grain and smooth mustards, the cayenne and the Worcester sauce. Season with a little salt and black pepper.

Mix the breadcrumbs and cheese together. Fill the hollowed-out tomatoes with the crab mixture, then scatter over the breadcrumb and cheese mixture. Addthe reserved slices of tomato on top then bake for 30 minutes until bubbling.

Email Nigel at nigel.slater@observer.co.uk