Summertime
— and tomatoes are — eeeeeeasy……

Carter was coming over for dinner, and as always, I asked him if there was anything special I could prepare, as I know his life is busy and he doesn’t always have time (or the budget) to put together some of his favorites.  Thinking I might hear “steak” or “Yorkshire pudding”, I was a little surprised when he asked if I would put together, “… you know… that salad with the tomatoes and the bread that you do?”  Indeed I do know.  It’s my favorite!

Panzanella is, at heart, simply a tomato and bread salad, quick to make and delicious to eat.  As with all my recipes, what I am offering is a mere suggestion of a jumping-off point, with plenty of options.  You can add all kinds of stuff to this salad to suit your palate, or make use of the contents of your fridge.  You can go fancy and use fresh garlic and onion, and make vinaigrette from scratch with all kinds of stuff in it.  You can add all kinds of extra vegetables, even cheese and meat.

Or you can make it fast and easy.  Here’s the scoop:

Panzanella

Ingredients

Tomatoes

Vinaigrette (oil and vinegar)

Seasoning

Toasted Bread Cubes

Sounds too easy, doesn’t it?  I’m not giving you any quantities on purpose – make a little, make a lot.  The tomato part will last in the fridge for about 2 days, without the bread.  If you want to do a “planned-over”, store the tomato part separately from the bread part.  This is great party food, as a starter, or a side.  Think of it as bruschetta that doesn’t fall off the bread and ruin your nice shirt.

Method

Tomatoes:  You can choose depending on the season and your budget.   Any delicious ripe tomato will do.  When I go to the market, I like to get a basket of the mixed varieties because the color is so exciting.

These mixed Heirloom and grape varieties make a pretty salad.

When the Romas are at their peak, that’s what I use.  When my friend Susan shows up with cherry tomatoes from the planters on her deck, those are the best.  If you are growing beautiful beefsteak tomatoes in your garden, use them!   Heirloom varieties sing with flavor!  Mid-winter, when I need a reminder that summer will come again, grape tomatoes (from Mexico) are the only tomatoes with any flavor at all. Their quality is fairly consistent if you choose the brand that has the best color (those little greenish ones aren’t going to taste as good as the dark red ripe ones.

Cut the tomatoes into uniform pieces, about the size of half a grape tomato.

Here’s a little tomato trivia:  The “caviar” of the tomato, that jelly-like seed-filled part, is often discarded on the basis that it is too wet and too bitter.  The seeds may indeed be bitter (and my Grandma used to say, “They get under my plate…”), but the jelly around them is just full of tomato flavor.  When the dish I am preparing requires removal of the seeds, I put them in a sieve and press out all that tomato-y goodness, which I add back to whatever I am making (like tomato soup).  You can add it to the vinaigrette in this case.

Vinaigrette:  You can go as simple as splashing the oil and vinegar of your choice (I like olive oil, and white Balsamic vinegar) right onto the tomatoes, with a generous sprinkle of salt and freshly ground black pepper.  I always add an equally generous sprinkle of my favorite salt-free onion/garlic/herb blend.  If you have lots of time and the inclination, you can make real vinaigrette with two parts oil to one part vinegar, pinches of salt, pepper and white sugar, finely minced fresh garlic and shallot to taste, and some finely chopped flat-leaf parsley or chives.  Keep it pretty simple, as you want the tomatoes to be the star of the dish.  Bottled dressing will work fine, but it’s just as fast to do the oil and vinegar thing.

Two tablespoons of good quality olive oil and 1 tablespoon of vinegar will generously dress 2 cups of tomatoes.

Toss the tomatoes with the vinaigrette and set aside at room temperature while you toast the bread cubes.

Please don’t use grocery-store croutons:  they’re just too dry and crunchy.  If you MUST use something like that, the parmesan-flavored “Twistos” are an acceptable product, but really a poor second.  This salad is called “Panzanella” because the bread part (the “pan” in Panzanella) is important, every bit as important as the bread in a good sandwich.

Get yourself a nice loaf of sourdough bread, or a good (not too airy) baguette, or in my case, a ciabatta bun.  Day-old is fine, but really stale is not.  Tear or slice the bread into bite-sized cubes – leave the crust on or avoid it, as you wish.  Sprinkle lightly with salt, not quite as generously as you would popcorn.

Warm up a large skillet over medium-high heat.  Add 1 tablespoon of oil per heaping cup of bread cubes, and let it heat for about 2 minutes before you add the bread.  Toss the bread in the hot oil quickly so each piece gets a little.  That bread is going to soak up ALL the oil, so don’t be more generous than you truly need to be.

You want the bread to toast, so adjust your heat so the cubes brown nicely, as if they were a grilled cheese sandwich.  I would tell you to toast the cubes on all sides, but that’s a task for the truly obsessive/compulsive.  Satisfy yourself with toast on at least two sides of each piece.  Your goal is “crispy on the outside, still soft on the inside”.

You can store cooled toasted bread cubes in an airtight container at room temperature for a day if you want to make extra, but they won’t be as good as fresh-toasted.  I’m just sayin’…

Toss the bread cubes with the dressed tomatoes.  Let everything sit for about 10 minutes so that the bread makes friends with the vinaigrette.

Eat and enjoy.  I eat mine right from the prep-bowl – it’s not elegant, but there’s less clean-up that way.

Extras:  There are no “Panzanella Police” out there, as far as I know.  If you want to use whole-grain bread, go right ahead.  If you want to add crumbled crisply-cooked bacon (because everything’s better with a little bacon) and a bit of chopped iceberg, you have BLT in a bowl.  If you’re one of those people who are putting kale in everything, you can certainly put kale in this.  If you want to add cubed or grated cheese of any kind, no one can tell you not to.  If you think this just calls out for cucumber or bell peppers or green onions, go nuts!

Celebrate tomatoes!  The minute the summer solstice announces the shortening of  days, get as much mileage out of Farmers’ Markets as you can.  I plan to eat as much market-fresh produce as possible while there is some chance that it was grown close to where I live.  If your own garden gives you lots of tomatoes, eat them up while they’re still warm from the sun — it doesn’t get any better than that!