Best Tomato Summer Pudding Recipes

TOMATO SUMMER PUDDING

Steps:

• Have enough tomatoes to overfill the pudding basin you will use. Dip into boiling water and peel them. Chop roughly and sprinkle with good sea salt and pepper and a tiny bit of sugar. Pour some passata into a large soup plate and season with lemon juice and Worstershire sauce, and maybe a touch of pepper sauce. Soak the bread slices briefly in this mixture and line your bowl with them, leaving no cracks or crannies. To the tomatoes add as much crushed garlic as you fancy, a good measure of olive oil and lots of torn up basil leaves. Adjust the seasoning and pour the whole lot into the bread lined bowl. Seal the top with more soaked bread. Place the receptacle on top with weights and leave overnight in the refrigerator. Turn out onto a fine dish and surround with goodies--quail eggs, olives, peppers, capers or what you will. A bowl of sour cream might be passed round with it, or good home-made mayonnaise.

TOMATO SUMMER PUDDING

Steps:

• Cut a shallow X in the bottom of each tomato with a sharp paring knife and blanch tomatoes in 2 batches in a 5- to 6-quart pot of boiling water, 1 minute per batch. Transfer tomatoes with a slotted spoon to a cutting board and, when cool enough to handle, peel, beginning from scored end, with knife.
• While tomatoes are cooling, mince and mash garlic to a paste with a pinch of salt using a large heavy knife. Halve tomatoes crosswise, discard cores, and scoop seeds into a fine-mesh sieve set over a bowl. Press on seeds to extract liquid, then discard seeds. Coarsely chop tomatoes, then coarsely purée in batches with strained tomato liquid in a blender or food processor.
• Heat 2 tablespoons oil in a deep 12-inch heavy skillet over moderately high heat until hot but not smoking, then sauté garlic paste, stirring, until golden, about 1 minute. Remove skillet from heat and carefully add a small amount of puréed tomatoes near side of skillet (sauce will splatter and bubble vigorously). When bubbling subsides, add remaining purée, 1 3/4 teaspoons salt, and 1/2 teaspoon black pepper. Return skillet to heat and simmer, uncovered, stirring occasionally, 5 minutes. Cool sauce to room temperature, about 1 hour, then stir in vinegar.
• Trim crusts from bread slices, reserving crusts for another use. If using Pullman loaf, cut 4 slices in half diagonally, then cut 1 round from 1 more slice using cookie cutter. If using round loaves, square off 5 slices of bread from center of loaf and cut triangles and 1 round in same manner. Ladle 3/4 cup sauce into soufflé dish and spread to cover bottom. Line bottom of dish with bread in a pinwheel shape, putting round in center and fanning triangles around it, covering sauce completely (you may have 1 triangle left over). Ladle 1 1/4 cups sauce over bread layer, spreading evenly to cover. Cover sauce with more bread slices, trimming as necessary to fit in 1 layer in dish. Repeat layering 3 more times, using 1 1/4 cups tomato sauce each time and ending with bread. Cover top layer of bread with remaining sauce. Cover surface with plastic wrap, then top with a plate small enough to just fit inside dish. Weight pudding with 2 heavy cans (about 2 pounds total) and chill at least 12 hours.
• Remove weights and plate and run a thin knife around edge of dish. Invert a large plate over pudding and invert pudding onto plate. If any sauce remains in dish, spoon it over pudding. Cut into wedges, drizzle with olive oil, and serve chilled or at room temperature.