Recipe · SANDWICH
Tomato & Mozzarella Sandwich
A tomato and mozzarella sandwich made with raw tomato is a race against the bread. Sliced tomato sits on toast leaking water, and within about four minutes the underside has gone from crisp to damp to structurally unsound.
Roasting is the fix, and it is not really about flavour — although concentrating the sugars does make them taste like tomatoes in a way a February supermarket tomato otherwise won't. It is about getting the water out somewhere other than into your lunch. Twenty minutes at 200°C drives off most of it and leaves the rest bound up in something jammy that stays where you put it.
Tear the mozzarella rather than slicing it. Torn edges hold oil and pesto in their crevices; a clean slice sheds both and slides off the bread on the first bite.
Recipe
Ingredients
For the tomatoes
- 6 small tomatoes, halved
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- Salt and black pepper
To assemble
- 2 thick slices sourdough
- 1 ball mozzarella, about 125 g
- 2 tbsp basil pesto
- A few basil leaves
- Flaky salt and olive oil, to finish
Method
- Roast the tomatoes. Heat the oven to 200°C fan. Sit the tomato halves cut side up on a small tray, trickle over the oil, season, and roast for 20 minutes until collapsed and browning at the edges.
- Toast the bread. Toast the sourdough until it is properly crisp on both sides — it has to hold wet tomatoes and soft cheese without going limp.
- Build. Spread each slice with pesto. Tear the mozzarella over in rough pieces rather than slicing it, so it catches the oil.
- Finish. Pile the hot tomatoes on top, scatter with basil and flaky salt, and add a last trickle of olive oil. Eat immediately.
Worth knowing
- The tomatoes can be roasted up to three days ahead and kept in the fridge in their own oil.
- Roasting rather than slicing raw is what stops the bread going soggy: twenty minutes of dry heat drives off the water that would otherwise end up in the toast.