Mothership Tomato Salad Recipes

SUMMER TOMATO AND HORSERADISH SALAD

Steps:

• Cut the bigger tomatoes into slices about 1cm/½ inch thick. You can halve the cherry tomatoes or leave them whole. Then sprinkle them all with a good dusting of sea salt. Put them in a colander and leave them for 30 minutes. What's going to happen here is that the salt will draw the excess moisture out of the tomatoes, intensifying their flavour. Don't worry about the salad being too salty, as a lot of the salt drips away.
• Place the tomatoes in a large bowl and dress with enough extra virgin olive oil to loosen (approximately 6 tablespoons), and 1-2 tablespoons of vinegar, but do add these to your own taste. Toss around and check for seasoning - you may or may not need salt but will certainly need pepper. Add the garlic. Now start to add the horseradish. Stir in a couple of teaspoons to begin with, toss around and taste. If you like it a bit hotter, add a bit more horseradish. All I do now is get some finely sliced flat-leaf parsley (stalks and leaves) and mix this into the tomatoes. Toss everything together and serve as a wonderful salad, making sure you mop up all the juices with some nice squashy bread.
• This salad is fantastic with roast beef, goat's cheese or jacket potatoes. And to be honest, even if you put these tomatoes in a roasting tray and roasted them with some sausages scattered around them it would be nice.

THE MOTHERSHIP TOMATO SALAD

Steps:

• This is an incredible tomato salad but there are two things to remember if you want to wow your guests with something so simple. The first is that you should try to get a mixture of different, tasty, local (if possible) tomatoes in all different shapes, sizes and colors. Second, the flavor is brought out by salting the tomatoes, so don't skip this bit. Some people get worried about putting this much salt on their food, but the bulk of it will drip off, leaving you with really beautiful, intensely flavored tomatoes.
• If you can get hold of some dried flowering oregano then do, as it has the most heavenly flavor. Feel free to use the dried stuff that you get in a little container, but it can taste a bit like sawdust when compared to the fruity, fragrant flavor you get from the flowering variety. Oregano is also great to grow in the garden.
• Depending on the size of your tomatoes, slice some in half, some into quarters and others into uneven chunks. Straightaway this will give you the beginnings of a tomato salad that's really brave and exciting to look at and eat. Put the tomatoes into a colander and season with a good pinch of sea salt.
• Give them a toss, season again and give a couple more tosses. The salt won't be drawn into the tomatoes; instead it will draw any excess moisture out, concentrating all the lovely flavors. Leave the tomatoes in the colander on top of a bowl to stand for around 15 minutes, then discard any juice that has come out of them.
• Transfer the tomatoes to a large bowl and sprinkle over the oregano. Make a dressing using 1 part vinegar to 3 parts oil, the garlic and the chile. Drizzle the tomatoes with enough dressing to coat everything nicely.
• This is a fantastic tomato salad, which is totally delicious to eat on its own. It's also great served with some balls of mozzarella or some nice, grilled ciabatta bread.
• "Our agreement with the producers of "Jamie at Home" only permit us to make 2 recipes per episode available online. Food Network regrets the inconvenience to our viewers and foodnetwork.com users"