Catalan snack pa amb tomàquet – or pan con tomate, or tomato bread – is usually as simple as rubbing garlic, then tomato on to crusty bread. Here though the tomatoes are given a quick confit on the cooktop in oil and chorizo fat to make them jammy and juicy, while the Turkish bread is sliced horizontally as a slab and baked to turn it into a giant, tanned and crispy crostini.
If you’re only making this for a few people, save the Turkish bread’s soft upper crust for the toaster later – it’ll be perfect as an accompaniment to other dips and dishes.
My recipe uses uncooked chorizo, which has a softer texture than cooked varieties, so it can be squashed out of the casings, as you might with a sausage. If you prefer to use cooked chorizo, you will need to cut it into discs before adding it to the frying pan. I like to do this straight into the pan using kitchen shears, to save having to use a chopping board.
You can sub out the chorizo altogether to keep this vego – use more oil instead and add a few cloves of garlic and a good sprinkle of paprika to the confit tomato mix. If tomatoes aren’t in season, good-quality tinned cherry tomatoes will do the trick. They won’t need as long to cook down; just watch for the jamminess to set in.
For a Mediterranean mashup, add some good-quality antipasti from the deli, such as roasted eggplant, red capsicum, artichoke hearts and/or mushrooms, tossing these through as soon as the tomatoes get jammy, or just artfully arranging them over the Turkish slab or toasts for something bordering bruschetta.
If you have leftover stale bread, Turkish or otherwise, tear it into chunks, drizzle with olive oil and bake into golden croutons at 180C for 20 minutes. Blitz any odds and ends in a food processor, place in a bag and freeze for homemade breadcrumbs.
For extra kick, sprinkle the toasts with crispy capers and/or anchovies, slices of jamón, or fresh or flaked chilli.
Alice Zaslavsky’s pumped up pan con tomate y chorizo – recipe
Serves 4-6
250g uncooked chorizo sausage
1⁄2 cup (125ml) olive oil
1 red onion, sliced
400ml (14 fl oz) dry apple cider
A pinch of sugar
500g cherry tomatoes
430g Turkish pide (or other long bread), sliced in half lengthways
1–2 garlic cloves, halved
100g manchego, or other firm sheep’s cheese
A handful of parsley, finely chopped
Lemon wedges, to serve
Salt and pepper, to taste
Preheat the oven to 160C fan (180C conventional).
Pop the chorizo out of its skin in chunks into a large, heavy-based frying pan with a tablespoon of the oil, then let it start cooking out its own flaming red fat over low heat for a minute or so. Add the onion and gently sweat for 6 to 8 minutes, until softened.
Splash in the cider, sprinkle in the sugar and toss in the tomatoes. Bring to the boil, then turn the heat back down to a simmer. Let the mixture bubble away for 25 to 30 minutes, until it looks syrupy and the oil floats to the top. Season to taste with salt flakes and cracked black pepper.
Meanwhile, place the bread slices on a baking tray, then slip another tray on top to flatten the bread and stop the slices curling up into half moons. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until the bread is golden brown and crispy as all heck.
To serve, rub some fresh garlic over the open faces of the bread, then arrange on a platter and pour the tomato mixture over them. Shave the manchego over. Sprinkle with the parsley and some more salt and pepper.
Drizzle with the remaining olive oil and serve with lemon wedges.
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This is an edited extract from The Joy of Better Cooking by Alice Zaslavsky, photography by Ben Dearnley, published by Murdoch Books in Australia ($55) and the UK (£25), and available as Better Cooking in Canada and the US, published by Appetite by Random House (US$35)
