French Friday with Dorie - Tomatoes Provençal

Today´s recipe for the French Fridays with Dorie group is "Tomatoes Provençal“. This recipe for oven-roasted tomatoes with an assortment of fresh herbs, garlic and olive oil  is the height of simplicity – with good ingredients, not much more needs doing. I think there is no arguing the fact that oven-roasted tomatoes take on an intensely deep flavor after roasting.

I love the idea that you can just season a dish of vegetables then leave it in the oven to get on with things by itself. As tomatoes are so abundantly available during the months of June, July and August, these roast tomatoes, or a very similar recipe, make a regular appearance in my kitchen throughout the summer.

All you need for this recipe are ripe tomatoes but do not use beefsteaks – for today´s dish  I used an assortment of red, orange, yellow, and green zebra tomatoes. We think that the different colored tomatoes are not only a feast for the eyes, they do in fact taste differently.

There are countless recipes for Tomatoes Provençal available and just last week we prepared some Honey-roasted Tomatoes for the Cottage Cooking Club. For Dorie Greenspan´s easy recipe, other than the tomatoes, all you need is some nice sea salt, freshly ground black pepper, two garlic cloves, and some freshly chopped herbs. I used a few bushy sprigs of thyme, rosemary and oregano from my garden, and, of course, a mild olive oil.

If you like your garlic to be less pungent, it is best to use the new season garlic here, the one that has no papery skins yet and together with a bit of salt grind it into a paste using the back of your knife, before adding it to the olive oil.

Pre-heat your oven, slice the tomatoes in half and lay them cut-side up in a shallow baking dish or roasting pan. Remove the thyme, rosemary and oregano leaves from their stems and put them in a small mixing bowl with the olive oil. Peel and finely crush the garlic cloves and stir into the olive oil with a generous grinding of sea salt and black pepper. Spoon over the tomatoes and bake for about 40 to 60 minutes or until the tomatoes are tender and slightly shrivelled.

Oven-roasted tomatoes have a deliciously concentrated flavor and a wonderful texture and can be used in many different ways.

Today marks the last day of school for the kids - six weeks of holidays. Therefore, for today´s post and as a summer starter,  I decided to serve the sweet Tomatoes Provençal with my newly-found favorite veg of the summer, broad beans, then slightly salty feta cheese on top of a few slices of grilled Ciabatta. Summertime is wonderful.

To see how much the other members of the French Fridays with Dorie group enjoyed this recipe, please go here.

If you happen to own Dorie Greenspan´s "Around my French Table", you will find the recipe for the „Tomatoes Provençal“ on pages 344-5.