This is a simple dish with nowhere to hide for inferior ingredients, so make this with ripe flavorful tomatoes and fresh aromatic herbs. As it says, this is a great topping for fish, whether grilled, roasted, or poached. Use it with any thicker fish. Use a milder olive oil, and only enough to be noticed. Too strong and it will overpower the tomatoes, and too much will muffle all the flavors and make the salad/topping heavy.
INGREDIENTS:
3-4 cups tomatoes, mixed types preferably, including small cherry type, cut into ½-inch dice 2 shallots or ¼ white onion, cut into fine dice 2 tablespoon dill 2 tablespoon fresh flat leaf parsley, chopped 1-2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice, to taste 3-4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, or to taste Salt and pepper to tasteMETHOD:
Put tomatoes into a colander over a bowl and shake to drain a little. Place tomatoes in a separate bowl with shallots or onions and toss to mix. Season with a little salt and pepper and toss, the scatter the herbs over the surface of the tomatoes.
Add the lemon juice to the tomato liquid in the bowl, the whisk in oil to form a loose dressing. Drizzle over tomatoes and gently mix all together. Taste, and add oil or salt if needed.
Use soon after making.
Chef’s Notes: If you wish, you could toss wild arugula leaves with this, or spoon some into butter leaf lettuce leaves, or over a stack small soft lettuce leaves. This is a great topping for grilled tuna, sword, or salmon, or an oilier fish such as mackerel. Try it with roasted or poached halibut, or even butter poached lobster. With the arugula it would be fine with steaks or pork chops. You can also use different herbs—substitute 2 TBS fresh basil and 2 TBS fresh mint, cut into fine shreds for the dill and decrease the parsley to 1 TBS. With this combination, the salad would go nicely with little balls or torn bits of fresh mozzarella.
Serves: 4
Source: Chef Andrew E Cohen
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