My Early Summer: Tomatoes with Caraway seeds

I thought I would start my series of inducing an early Summer with one of my favourites.

There is nothing quite like ripe tomatoes, but around now, when the first flavoursome ones come onto the market, this is the perfect opportunity to bring Summer to your lunchtime or supper time with the minimum of work.

In this recipe I'm using flat leaf parsley that has simply been washed, dried and de-stalked as salad green rather than a herb.  Hopefully, if its young (rather than later in the year when its pretty tough) it will have softer flavour.  However, if you think it tastes too strong, halve the amount and instead rip a few young leaves of spinach.

Ingredients:

• 3-4 large ripe tomatoes, cored and chopped roughly
• half a large bunch of flat leaf parsley, washed, dried
• 1 tablespoon of caraway seeds
• 2 tablespoons of good olive oil or rapeseed oil
• 1 small onion, chopped very finely
• 2 tablespoons of your favourite vinegar, balsamic or otherwise (in my case rosemary infused)
• a pinch of salt

Place tomatoes and parsley in a large bowl.

Heat a small frying pan on medium and dry fry/toast the caraway seeds until they start to change colour.  Keep moving them around in the pan so that they don't burn. 

Add the onion and the oil and heat through, stirring constantly.  This is just to take a little bite out of the onion rather than to soften it as there should be a little crunch left.

Add the vinegar and salt and allow to bubble for just a couple of seconds on the heat and then tip directly over the tomatoes and parsley.  Mix through thoroughly and serve.

A very good accompaniment to some freshly made falafel or served with wholemeal toast as a starter.