Introduction: Tomato Bread or "Pa Amb Tomaquet"

About: I begun in that artistic/craftsman world by the hand of my mother who is potter and art teacher. Also in my father's hobby wood-workshop I learn to lathe and use all kind of tools. I coursed some studies in…
Hi all again,

Do you know Ferran Adrià, Santi Santamaria or Carme Ruscalleda? Both tree are awarded with the michelin's tree star award, and I want to show the MOTHER OF HER CUISINE:
The Pa Amb Tomaquet dish, what is the base and best dish of Catalan Cocking Arts.

Pa Amb Tomaquet is a traditional Catalan dish. In antiquity the peasants cook their own bread, and to save money and time, they cook lots of round 1 kg loaves. From that large quantity of bread many go stale and cannot be eaten. Then the "Pa amb tomaquet" enters the scene to transform the "old, dried, and uneatable bread" into an eatable and "flavourful" one.
Also to eat "pa amb tomaquet" in winter months, catalan peasants developed a "new" variety of tomatoes, the "tomatoes to hang" which are a little ones which are collected green and once hung in dry and dark places become ripe and mellow in winter.

This is a really simple but delicious dish. To do that, you need few ingredients #:
  • Bread,
  • Red ripe tomato,
  • 1º Extra Virgin Olive oil,
  • Salt.

#Notes on the ingredients:
  • For the oil, you can use other olive oil types but 1º is the tasty one.
  • For the Bread. Don't use the sandwich style bread, minimum requirements are a french baguette, but the best bread to do that is some "dense" bread. This bread can be done with integral flour, but this is not mandatory. German style breads (the darkest ones) are not really good for this recipe because they are really flavourous, and do not "need" the tomato smell...(but this is only my opinion...)
  • For the tomato, In Catalunya, we use a tomato type called something like "tomato to hang" what is a kind of tomato who grow up in bunch, and when one of the tomatoes of the cluster is ripe, the peasant collect all the bunch and hang it somewhere in the house and in winter, when all the tomatoes goes ripening, they use with this dish. But you can use a red round tomato (the jitomato ones, are not so good for that...)


Step 1: 1st Steps

1- cut the bread in 1/4" or 0,8cm. slides, if you use the "peasant style bread" like I use, it's easy to do that, if you use a french bread baguette, cut it along the middle.

2- Cut the tomato along the horizontal middle  (see pict).

3- Take one of the tomato parts and rub it over the bread slice. You need to rub it "gently & strong" to get the tomato "empty" and spreaded over the bread without breaking the bread.

Step 2: 2nd Steps

- salt it (a pinch).
-Oil it (few drops).
-shake the bread to get it oiled uniformly.

Step 3: Last Step

-Eat it.

This dish, is really good with roasted vegs, cheese, ham, omelette, to make sandwiches...

Bon profit! (wich means good appetite!)

Cheers!

*Thanks to Quatch who helps me and correct the spelling in intro step...