Tomato Bread Salad

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Ingredients

Ingredients	Quantity
Plain wholewheat baked bread slices (rusk slices)	6
Very ripe tomatoes, chopped	4
Garlic cloves, crushed	4
Basil leaves, lightly torn	15 to 20
Salad tomatoes, cut into chunks	2
Small red onion, julienned	1
Red wine vinegar	1 tbsp
Salt and black pepper	to taste
Olive oil	8 to 10 tbsp

In a food processor, combine together chopped tomatoes, garlic, 10 basil leaves, salt and pepper. Blend until smooth.
Transfer the tomato mixture to a bowl and submerge the rusk slices in it. Let them stand for about 5 mins.
While the rusk is soaking the tomato mixture, prepare the salad. In a bowl, combine the salad tomato, onions and leftover basil leaves. Season with salt and pepper and vinegar. Toss to coat evenly.
Heat a large flat pan over medium heat. Add olive oil. Once hot, remove the rusk slices from the tomato mixture and add to the pan. Cook for about 2-3 minutes on each side until the outside is a bit crispy.
Transfer the bread to the serving dish. Arrange the tomato salad on top of the bread and serve. For the perfect taste, make sure your every bite has all the four main ingredients – caramelised bread, tomato, onion and basil.

Pappa al Pomodoro is a classic thick Italian bread and tomato soup. But this is a twist on the classic soup turning the soup into a salad plate.
The ingredients are the same as the classic soup recipe but the idea of soaking the bread and then caramelising it on the outside while keeping the centre soft gives it an entirely different look, texture and taste.
In the original recipe, chef makes his own very dry baked bread by placing bread slices in a gas oven overnight. The pilot light will dry the bread completely. Alternatively, you can toast the bread in a toaster, let it cool and stand overnight until it is completely dry. It’s important that you don’t use soft rusk or bread otherwise it will fall apart during cooking.