​x

This week my stomach did a little flip when I saw they had heritage tomatoes. When I was growing up my grandparents grew tomatoes in a greenhouse beside their home. Granny was a magnificent gardener (the ability skipped a generation) and one of my best memories is of standing in the hot glass house and popping these sweet red orbs into my mouth like they were sweets. My nephew has taken up the gardening mantle and has a superb tomato and chilli crop every year. If growing isn’t your thing suss out the people who do it well. When you have great tomatoes all you need to do is cut them in half, drizzle over some Broighter Gold oil, a scattering of seasalt and some balsamic and you’re good to go. The Spanish do a dish called pan con tomate, meaning bread with tomato, where they toast bread, rub with garlic and drizzle with oil and then grated tomatoes on top. It’s very nice but I prefer my local version - a sandwich made with a plain loaf, buttered, topped with sliced tomatoes, salt and pepper and a good dollop of salad cream. Hard to beat…..

Courgettes are doing well at the moment and home grown ones are infinitely more tasty than the insipid Dutch mass grown ones. In the recipe here they’re grated into a fritter and served with a tomato salad. The salad has olives and capers in it but feel free to leave them out if not to your taste. Either way it’s a celebration of local summer produce. My local farmshop in Coleraine, Galbraiths, probably has the best potatoes available in the world at the moment. I’m obviously open to other opinions! Their new season Sharpe’s Express are a joy – simply scrub, steam and toss in butter and seasalt. They are the finest accompaniment to any meal. I’d even say they’re good enough to forgo the butter….. The recipe here does include butter, however, in the form of a brown butter dressing. The French call this beurre noisette, or nutty butter, where its cooked until golden and has an aroma of nuts. Add a shallot half way through cooking and whisk in mustard, vinegar, oil and dulse. If you don’t like dulse leave it out but it really does add a delicious umami to the dressing. When the spuds are done toss in the dressing to soak up the flavours. This would work well with any fish but I love the constant availability of smoked mackerel and there are great local varieties of it. East Coast Seafood in County Down do a fantastic job of smoking local fish and are well worth sussing out. Go to one of the fish mongers we have left to source and support them. If you’re lucky enough to get your hands on some fresh mackerel, grill it on the barbecue and this salad would make a great accompaniment. Or leave out the dulse and it will go with all manner of roasts and grills.