It’s Labor Day and I’m not laboring.
Take advantage of some great tomatoes and try this summery salad from an earlier post.
Sometimes, looking at the availability of good ingredients, you wonder about the timing of cookbooks. The Accidental Locavore tried to get a reviewer’s copy of the upcoming Plenty More (due out in October) and was turned down.
Luckily, Bon Appetit ran a few recipes from the book and this tomato salad caught my eye. I roasted the lemons ahead of time (on a cool evening), so they were ready to go and this came together quickly:
- 1 lemon, halved lengthwise, thinly sliced, seeds removed
- 1 tablespoon thinly sliced fresh sage leaves
- ½ teaspoon sugar
- 2 tablespoons olive oil, divided
- 1 tablespoon pomegranate molasses
- ½ teaspoon ground allspice
- Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
- 1½ pound mixed cherry tomatoes, or small heirlooms quartered
- ½ small red onion, thinly sliced
- ¼ cup fresh flat-leaf parsley leaves, coarsely chopped
- ¼ cup fresh mint leaves, torn if large
Preheat oven to 325°. Cook lemon slices in a medium saucepan of boiling water 2 minutes to remove bitterness. Drain and pat dry.
Toss lemon slices with sage, sugar, and 1 tablespoon of the olive oil in a medium bowl. Spread out on a parchment-lined baking sheet and bake until lemons are dry and starting to brown about 15—20 minutes. Let cool.
Whisk pomegranate molasses, allspice, and remaining 1 Tbsp. oil in a large bowl; season with salt and pepper. Add lemons, tomatoes, onion, parsley, and mint. Toss gently; season with salt and pepper, serve and enjoy!
My verdict: A great change from tomatoes and mozzarella, it’s light and refreshing, with a nice tang from the lemons and pomegranate molasses and it might be the easiest salad dressing on the planet! My pomegranate molasses will be getting a lot more use from now on — it was great with the tomatoes and mint. I also really liked the roasted lemon slices and saved some to toss in with my usual lunch salad. Next time, I’ll roast a couple of lemons at the same time and keep them in a Ziploc bag in the fridge for future use — they’d be good with a chicken too. Mint would also go well if you didn’t have any sage. My husband thought the lemon slices would be better cut in half, but I liked them as is.
And I’d still love to see a reviewer’s copy of the book…
Not CB+cabbage. My childhood nemesis was my mother’s vegetable soup…with WAY too much cabbage. Ugh.
I’ve never been a huge cabbage fan, but grilling it makes it so much better than the slimy corn beef and cabbage of my childhood (and your too?).
It’s a great dressing for any salad!
That pomegranate molasses sounds great- so does everything though actually. Fresh and tangy flavors, total yum!!
One (or many) can never( well, almost never) have too many tomatoes or fail to have an adequate storehouse of authentic mozzarella. However, this recipe does appear to provide a respite from the monotonous use of prosciutto and balsamic vinegar, a somewhat dull and uninspired routine that comes with warm weather. If there is one aspect of being a foodie upon which the Accidental Locavore may be counted upon, it is the regular assault of the gastronomic status quo.
But I detest cabbage, no matter how you slice it. Or grill it. Or slaw it. Well, perhaps sauerkraut….