This is just one of many, many tomato salads I make over the course the summer.  I love them.  It probably has something to do with the Sunday afternoon trips down my Grandad Dowton’s crazy paved garden path to pick tomatoes from his greenhouse.  Always supervised.  (It wasn’t, you must know, the kind of garden you were allowed to play in.  Wide flower beds were planted, Victorian style, with high maintenance bedding plants all lovingly raised from seed.)

I loved that strong, sweet smell of summer as you opened the greenhouse door.  Then, my brother and I would giggle over the irregular shaped ones before being given a warm tomato each to eat on the way back to the kitchen.

This Greek-Style Tomato Salad isn’t anything my grandparents would have served.  I’m not sure if they ever tasted feta cheese and I’m certain they didn’t eat olives.

When you think about it they wouldn’t have been brought up on tomatoes.  The Victorians thought they caused illness unless you boiled them into submission.  Tomatoes only became a regular part of the British diet during the food rationing of the Second World War when any source of vitamin C was a good thing.

For all we think we’re so much more sophisticated with our food choices now, supermarkets sell some tasteless tomatoes.  On the vine or off it, they’re picked green and left to ripen.  I’m not convinced it’s worth paying the extra money charged for the on-the-vine sort and am absolutely certain there’s no point buying anything that has been transported miles in refrigerated storage units.

Mine came from a local farmers’ market, but the best tomatoes of all are the ones you grow yourself.  Second best, are the excess garden produce you sometimes see placed on tables by front gates.

Here’s the entire cast of characters of my salad, minus the feta which is still tucked in the fridge.  I made this on 1 July and that was a record breaking warm day and my kitchen is South facing.  It was hot.

The round salad tomato is fine.  Don’t put them in the fridge and store root end down.  I have absolutely no idea why that works, but stem end down keeps them better.  When you come to use them, if there’s any decay you should throw the entire tomato away.  No just cutting off the rotten bit.

For a salad like this, I like the skins off.  Put a saucepan of water on to the boil and cut a shallow cross in the base end of the tomato. You’ll find it easier if you use a serrated knife – a bread knife is fine!

When the water is boiling, pop the tomatoes in for 30 seconds.  1 minute, tops.

Drain, then put the tomatoes into a bowl of cold water.

The skins peel off.

There they are.

Cut into quarters and slice out the core.

Then into bite sized crescents.

Season with sea salt and crushed black peppercorns.  A little sugar will help sweeten if you’re not entirely convinced they’re sufficiently sun-kissed.

Then, cover and leave to ‘settle’ for an hour.  I had a fly in the kitchen and spent the next ten minutes or so darting about the kitchen with a dampened tea towel in my hand.  I got the blighter.

Wash, trim any straggly green bits and chop off the roots.

And slice.

Roughly chop a bunch of flat-leaf parsley.

Some fresh oregano, if you have it.  Just the leaves and roughly chop.

I love olives.  Like Globe Artichokes, I met them in my twenties and thought they were so sophisticated.  Yes, I hated my first olive – but I worked at it.  Now I pop them like sweets.

These are Kalamata olives and I buy them stone in.  You don’t need a fancy olive stoner.  I just cut mine in half and ease any stubborn stones out with the tip of my knife.

When it’s time to serve, start layering everything up.  Add the spring onions.

Parsley, oregano and olives.

Not all feta is equal.  I look for barrel-aged feta made from sheep or goat milk and buy in a block which I store in brine.  (The best feta I’ve ever eaten was made at home by a Greek lady living in London, so under EU rules I’m not even sure she could call it feta.)

If you want to tone down the salty edge, you can soak your feta block in a half milk/half water for an hour.

Crumble in the feta and dried oregano.

Add olive oil, lemon zest and the juice of a lemon.

Give everything a mix.  Eat.

Greek-Style Greek Salad

Serves 8

• 12 ripe tomatoes, skinned
• Sea salt and cracked black peppercorns
• 1 tsp of sugar, optional
• 8 spring onions, including the green ends, finely sliced
• Bunch of fresh flat leaf parsley, roughly chopped
• 2 tablespoons of fresh oregano, leaves only, roughly chopped
• 20 Kalamata Olives, stoned
• 150g/5oz feta cheese
• 4 tablespoons dried oregano
• 12 tablespoons of cold-pressed Greek olive oil
• Grated zest and juice of one unwaxed lemon

Core the tomatoes and cut into bite-sized crescents.  Arrange on a serving plate and sprinkle over sea salt and crushed black peppercorns.  Sugar, if needed.  Cover and leave for 45 minutes – 1 hour.

When you are ready to serve, sprinkle over the chopped spring onions, chopped parsley, chopped oregano, stoned olive and dried oregano.  Crumble over the feta.  Add the lemon zest, olive oil and lemon juice.

Eat.

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Yesterday was a record breaking hot day – and this was lunch.  I made some olive bread and put together a Greek-Style Tomato Salad, too, but I’ll post them next week.  I think I must be thinking ‘Greece’ because the news is so full of scenes from Athens.  Tough times ahead for a lovely country whichever way they vote, I fear.

I love Greek food, but then I love the herbs that predominate in it – oregano, mint, dill, bay leaves, Greek basil, thyme and fennel are the ones that spring to mind.  Being a home cook, I have to use what I can buy.  My oregano is not the evocative rigani, as far as I’m aware.  It’s Bart’s.  Greek basil, I can get.  The bitter salad leaves don’t taste quite as bitter as they do under Greek sunshine, but I probably would balk at so many unnecessary air-miles just to feed my children lunch.

Nothing for it, a visit to Greece is in my future.

In the meantime, we’re coming to the end of the British asparagus season.  I have treated my early spears with utmost respect and I’m now putting them in tarts, wrapping in pancakes and making them into salads.

I picked up a couple of bundles – which was a little over 500g.  There’s a point on an asparagus spear where it’ll snap naturally.  That place marks the end of the fibrous bit and the start of the tender, delicious bit.

(Incidentally, I read something the other day about the English style of eating – and cooking – asparagus.  Apparently, we steam the whole asparagus spear and then use the fibrous bit to hold.  I will confess to eating with my fingers on occasion, but I’m afraid I eat the whole thing and would be irritated to get fibrous bits between my teeth.  Plus, I am inclined to lick my fingers when no-one is looking rather than look for a finger bowl.  I would be more disappointed in myself if the writer didn’t labour under the assumption all households own an asparagus steamer but I have never lived in a household which possessed one.)

If you are aesthetically fastidious, you can neaten up the ends with a knife.  I do that.  Sorry!

My asparagus I would classify as ‘medium’.  What chefs call sprue asparagus (that’s the spindly ones) I’d use for something else.  Fatter asparagus will need peeling.  Just the lower part to make sure what you have in your salad is tender.

Whatever you are left with – pop the snapped off ends and any trimmings in a freezer bag.  That’s asparagus soup in the making.

The asparagus spears I give a rinse under running water and fill a wide saucepan with about 5cm/2″ of water.  Just enough to cover the asparagus in a single layer.  Ish.  You can be a little relaxed about it.

When the water is boiling add a little sea salt.  I season lightly, partly because I’m going to save the asparagus water for soup and that will intensify the salt content and partly because these spears are going in a flavourful dressing.

Simmer for 3 minutes.  It’s almost more of a blanch.  Just tender.  Then drain, reserving the water if you want to make soup.  I put mine in a freezer bag for another day.  Usually, I lay the spears on kitchen paper to dry .. but I’d run out.

And the dressing …

Finely zest one lemon.  Put it and the juice into a bowl.

100ml/3½fl oz of cold-pressed Greek olive oil.  Use one you like the flavour of.

1 teaspoon of dried oregano.

Salt and pepper.  This is such a subjective thing, but I used 2 scant teaspoons of coarse sea salt and crushed 1 teaspoon of black peppercorns in a pestle and mortar.

Give the drained – and still perky – asparagus a toss in the dressing.

Finely chop three shallots and add those.

A small bunch of flat-leaf parsley.  I had to use a small supermarket pot and I used it all.  Roughly chop.  It’s part of the salad so I like to see bits of parsley.

Give everything a light toss and leave it at room temperature for all the flavours to get acquainted.  If you want to leave it longer than an hour, pop into the fridge and bring it back to room temperature before serving.

Eat.

Greek-Style Asparagus Salad

Serves 4-6 as a side.

• 2 bundles of medium asparagus spears (about 500g/1lb)
• Zest and juice of 1 lemon
• 100ml/3½fl oz of cold-pressed Greek olive oil
• 1 teaspoon of dried oregano
• 3 shallots, finely chopped
• small bunch of flat-leaf parsley, roughly chopped
• 1 teaspoon of roughly crushed black peppercorns
• Sea-salt, to taste

Snap off the tough ends of the asparagus spears and freeze to use in stocks or soup.  Rinse the spears under running water.

Bring 5cm/2½” of water to a boil in a wide saucepan.  Season lightly and add the spears.  Simmer for 3 minutes, or until the asparagus spears are just tender.  Drain and spread on kitchen towel to dry.

Place the zest and juice of the lemon in a bowl.  Add 100ml/3½fl oz of cold-pressed Greek olive oil, 1 teaspoon of dried oregano and season with salt and crushed black peppercorns.

Lightly toss the asparagus spears in the dressing.

Add the finely chopped shallots and the roughly chopped parsley.  Give everything a final toss and serve at room temperature.

Eat.

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Fasolakia (Φασολακια) simply means ‘green bean’ in Greek – and this is a deliciously old fashioned Greek green bean casserole.  It doesn’t take much imagination to realise it’s a way of using up a summer glut but, truly, it’s so much more than the sum of its parts.

It’s one of those recipes where the origin is lost in the mists of time, but it’s something you find in tavernas all over Greece.

Sometimes there is potato, sometimes courgettes and even the occasional beef rib bone.  I rather like the beef rib bone – if you happen to have one around.  I prefer it without the courgette and, since I like  to freeze this down in batches, I don’t include potato.

Non negotiable are the green beans.

It’s too early for any beans to be harvested in my garden – and I suspect the plants are drowning since we’ve had so much rain this year.  I’m not holding out for a glut.  Fortunately, I happened upon a bargain.  (There’s a lot to be said for picking up your daughter from work!  I shall miss that when Liddy starts uni.)

The easiest way to deal with the topping and tailing is to slice through the bag.  Any bean evading my knife can be easily dealt with but it’s so less mind numbing than working through them individually.

I wanted to make a bumper batch of Fasolakia so I added some stringless Helda beans to my stash of bargain fine green beans.  It’s entirely in the spirit of the thing to use all and every type of bean.  Use whatever is the best value.  (Bet you can’t beat 10p for 280g!)

Fasolakia is the kind of thing you want to eat with a fork so cut the beans into bite sized pieces.

Chop your onions into small dice.

Cut the top off the onion.  Then cut in half leaving the root attached.  Peel the skin away.  If you want something to hold you can leave it attached.  Cut two horizontal cuts.

Then make lots of vertical ones.  Working towards the root, slice downwards to make dice.

Soften in olive oil – or groundnut oil – until soft and translucent.  Take your time.

While that’s happening, grate the carrot.  I use a chunky box grater.

Toast and grind some coriander seeds.

Put the seeds in a dry frying pan and place over a low heat.  Keep an eye on it as they can burn quickly.  You know when it’s ‘done’ by the smell.  If you’re cooking on an Aga – place your seeds in a frying pan and place in the Roasting Oven for 5 minutes.

Either way, transfer the warm seeds to a pestle and mortar and grind.

If I lived in Greece I’d use fresh tomatoes, but I don’t.   Out-of-season tomatoes seem to taste of nothing so I prefer to use tinned tomatoes.  I buy ‘whole’ tomatoes in preference to ‘chopped’.

If you think about it, it’s obvious the better quality tomatoes go into the ‘whole tomato’ tins and the less-than-perfect tomatoes end up in the ‘chopped’.  It’s not much effort to give it all a squeeze.  Clean hands are convenient and you don’t cut into the seed which is the most bitter part of a tomato.  A teaspoon of sugar per tin mimics the sweetness of sun ripened fresh tomatoes.

Garlic.  I grate mine on a microplane grater because I think it distributes the garlic more evenly through the dish.  If you don’t own a microplane grater – add it to your Birthday List – and bash and finely chop in the meantime.

Then, place all the vegetables and garlic in a nice big casserole dish.

Add some chilli flakes to the semi-ground coriander.  Grind.

Now, some ginger.  The easiest way to peel a knobbly lump of ginger is to use a teaspoon and scrape.  A coarse microplane grater is the best tool to reduce it to a desirable mush but a box grater also works well.

Everything goes into the casserole.

Add chicken or vegetable stock.

Chop lots of fresh parsley.

Add the softened onions and most of the parsley to the casserole.  Now, it’s a question of cooking long and slow.

Cover and simmer over a low heat for 1 hour.  Aga:  Place in the Simmering Oven.

Taste.  Season with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper.  Now it the point at which it freezes wonderfully.

Feta is best bought ‘in brine’.  It means you can take what you need and store the rest in the fridge for another day.

Sprinkle the Fasolakia with a little chopped parsley and some crumbled feta cheese.

Fasolakia is even tastier the day after you make it; when all the flavours have become acquainted.  It’s even lovely served cold in pita bread.

Personally, I love it warm and served with lots of freshly baked crusty bread.  Try it as a side dish with barbecued lamb.  Just lovely.

Eat.

Fasolakia

Serves 4 with crusty bread (more with slow-cooked lamb)

• 500g/1lb green beans, cut into bite sized pieces
• 2 onions, diced
• 4 tablespoons of olive oil or ground nut oil
• 2 cloves of garlic, grated to a pulp
• 2 carrots, peeled and grated
• 1 x 400g tin of whole tomatoes
• 1 tablespoon of coriander seeds, toasted and ground
• Pinch of dried chilli flakes
• A chunky thumb-sized piece of ginger, peeled and grated to a mush
• 100ml/3 ½ fl oz chicken or vegetable stock
• Large bunch of freshly chopped parsley
• Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Soften the diced onions in oil until they are soft and translucent.

Place the beans, grated carrot, garlic, tomatoes, ginger, ground coriander, chilli flakes, ginger, stock, chopped parsley and the softened onions in a large casserole dish.  Mix everything together.  Cover and simmer gently for an hour.  (Aga:  Bring up to a boil and transfer to the Simmering Oven for an hour.)

Taste and season with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper.

To serve, sprinkle over some chopped parsley and some chunks of salty feta cheese.

Eat.

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