Pasta, salad and jam: Yotam Ottolenghi’s summer tomato recipes | Food

Tomatoes, tomatoes, tomatoes: we can all live on tomatoes! Well, we can’t, I know, but when the sun is out, and the tomatoes are ripe and sweet, I do my best to try. As we roll towards the end of the season, however, I try to stretch them out for the months to come. So, today, a sauce, a salad and a jam: one to eat now and two to tide you over in the weeks and months ahead.

Tomato butter pasta (pictured top)

Fusilloni is fusilli’s big brother, so if you can’t find it, use the latter instead; however, being smaller, it may not need quite as long in the oven, so keep an eye on it. As anyone who has made Marcella Hazan’s tomato butter sauce will spot, this dish is indebted to her master sauce. Accompanied by a green salad, this one-tray meal is the perfect midweek dinner.

Prep 15 min
Cook 1 hr 45 min
Serves 4

700g datterini or cherry tomatoes
300g vine tomatoes, roughly grated and skins discarded (200g net weight)
10g oregano sprigs, leaves picked
20g basil leaves
6 garlic cloves, peeled and thinly sliced
1 red chilli, thinly sliced
2 tbsp tomato paste
1 tsp caster sugar
Salt and black pepper
150g unsalted butter, cut into 2cm cubes
250g fusilloni, or fusilli
25g parsley, finely chopped
Grated parmesan, to serve (optional)

Heat the oven to 220C (200C fan)/425F/gas 7.

Put the first eight ingredients in a roughly 20cm x 30cm roasting tin, add a teaspoon and a half of salt and a good grind of pepper, and toss to combine. Cover tightly with foil and bake for an hour, until the tomatoes have cooked down.

Remove the foil (keep it, because you’ll need it again in a bit), stir in the butter and pasta, then pour over 400ml boiling water, cover again with the foil and bake for another 35 minutes. Remove the foil and bake uncovered for a final 10 minutes, or until the pasta is nicely sauced and cooked through. Sprinkle over the parsley and serve, with or without parmesan for sprinkling on top.

Heirloom tomato salad with black garlic crumb

Few things taste better than fresh tomatoes that have had the whole summer to soak up sunshine; add bread to the equation, and you have a glorious light meal. This makes more garlic crumb than you need here; keep the excess in an airtight container, and save to spoon on to salads or cooked vegetables.

Prep 40 min
Cook 25 min
Serves 4 as a side

60ml olive oil
6 garlic cloves, peeled and thinly sliced
650g heirloom tomatoes, cored and cut into roughly 1cm-thick slices
1½ tbsp white balsamic vinegar, or any other sweet vinegar
½ tsp flaked sea salt, to serve

For the crumb
30g panko breadcrumbs
Salt and black pepper
20g black garlic, finely chopped
1 tbsp lemon zest (ie, from 1-2 lemons)
25g parsley, finely chopped

Put the oil and garlic in a small frying pan on a medium heat and cook, stirring occasionally, for nine to 10 minutes, until lightly golden. Drain through a heat-proof sieve set over a bowl, and leave the garlic solids and the oil to cool separately.

To make the crumb, put two tablespoons of the reserved garlic oil in the same small frying pan, set it over a medium-high heat, then add the breadcrumbs and a quarter-teaspoon of salt, and cook, stirring often, for four or five minutes, until the breadcrumbs start to turn light brown. Add the black garlic, pressing it down with a spatula or the back of a spoon, to crush it well and combine it with the breadcrumbs, and cook for another four or five minutes, until the crumbs take on a coarse, sand-like texture. Take off the heat, stir in the lemon zest, parsley and a good grind of black pepper, and set aside to cool. Once cool, transfer to a small bowl.

Arrange the tomatoes on a large, lipped platter, then drizzle over the remaining reserved garlic oil (there should be about three tablespoons left) and all the vinegar. Sprinkle over a third of the crumb mix, half the reserved fried garlic and a half-teaspoon of flaked salt, and serve with the remaining fried garlic and more crumb on the side.

Yellow tomato jam with turmeric (on goat’s cheese toasts)

Goat’s cheese toast is just one place where this sunny yellow jam is very happy; there are lots of others – on a cheese board, for instance, or in all sorts of sandwiches.

Prep 5 min
Cook 50 min-1 hr
Makes 500g

For the jam
180g caster sugar
1 tsp pectin
Salt and black pepper
2 x 400g tins whole yellow plum tomatoes, or 800g fresh yellow tomatoes, blanched and peeled
5g fresh turmeric, peeled and finely grated
1 tbsp lemon juice

For the goat’s cheese toasts
30g unsalted butter
2 x 2cm-thick slices sourdough
120g soft rindless goat’s cheese
¾ tsp aleppo chilli flakes

Put the sugar, pectin and a quarter-teaspoon of salt in a small bowl and stir to combine.

Put the tomatoes in a medium saucepan and crush them with your hands until they are chunky. Add the sugar and pectin mixture to the pan, then add the turmeric and lemon juice, and bring to a simmer on a medium-high heat. Turn down the heat to medium and leave to cook for 50 minutes to an hour, stirring frequently towards the end of the cooking time, until thick and glossy.

While the tomato mix is still hot, pour it into a sterilised jar (or jars), then leave to cool before sealing and refrigerating. It will keep in the fridge for up to a month.

For the toasts, melt the butter in a medium frying pan on medium-high heat, then lay in the sourdough and fry for two to three minutes on each side, until deeply golden‘; add more butter, if necessary.

Take the bread out of the pan and spread the cheese uniformly over each slice. Spoon a couple of tablespoons of the jam on top, sprinkle on the chilli flakes and serve hot.