Herby Bruschetta

September is bruschetta weather: it’s peak tomato season, heirloom garlic was just harvested, and you can still find tender herbs like basil and mint at the market. I make a lot of bruschetta, so adding in herbs and changing the herb mix keeps it interesting. You can go from bright and light with mint for hot summer BBQs, or super savoury with thyme and parsley for cooler evenings when you’re ready to turn the oven on again.

Ingredients

• 1 baguette, ciabatta, or half a loaf of sourdough

• 1kg tomatoes, I prefer heirlooms, but this works with any kind of tomato

• 1-3 cloves of garlic, look for low heat heirloom varieties like Music garlic

• 50g fresh tender herbs, weighed with stems on, such as basil, mint, parsley, thyme, oregano, or tarragon (1/2 cup after chopping)

• 60g good olive oil (4 tbsp) for tomato mix and 30g (2 tbsp) for baguette

• 30g lemon juice or white wine vinegar (1 lemon / 2 tbsp)

• 5g salt (0.5% of the tomato weight, about 1 teaspoon)

• Pepper to taste

Method

Make the bruschetta

In a medium bowl, mix all of the ingredients:

• Cut the tomatoes in 1/4” pieces, if your tomatoes are very watery inside you can either remove the insides or allow the juice to strain before proceeding

• Grate the garlic with a microplane or finely chop it; if you’re using a microplane you don’t even need to peel it

• Finely chop the herbs, you want the pieces smaller than the tomatoes

• Add the olive oil, lemon juice, salt, and pepper to taste

• Taste and adjust seasoning

  • Bland or bitter: more lemon or salt

  • Sour: more olive oil

  • Salty: more olive oil or a pinch of sugar

  • Heat: more lemon or let it sit

Allow this to sit at room temperature for up to 3 hours. Please don’t put tomatoes in the fridge, it changes the texture.

Turn the baguette into crostini

• Cut the baguette into 3” long segments

• Cut each segment lengthwise in half, like you are making a sandwich

• If you plan to make the bruschetta in advance, such as taking it to a BBQ, I would recommend following the instructions for olive oil toast – the bread will stay crispy while in storage or after sitting in the bruschetta juices

• Alternatively, pre-heat your oven to 475°F. Place the baguette pieces cut side up on a baking sheet, drizzle with olive oil, and bake for 5 minutes or until the pieces are toasted with a bit of char at the edges.

Assemble

Place the crostini on your serving platter.

Add around 2 spoons of bruschetta mix onto each piece, it really depends on the size of your bread.

Notes:

If you don’t like the heat from raw garlic you can briefly cook it in the olive oil to reduce the bite.

If you like the heat and want more of it, you can add in a finely diced shallot to add heat without overpowering the dish with garlic flavour.

The olive oil is almost 10% of the recipe by weight, so if you are saving a good olive oil, this is a great application of it.