It is a great time to buy tomatoes as they are at their peek of flavour. Enjoy this recipe for tomato salad and as part of my family tradition, we serve the salad on bread. Here is a great version with sourdough bread. It also has aged balsamic (at least 2 years old) vinegar, which is a true fermented food and tomatoes are a great prebiotic food.

4 perfectly ripe tomatoes

4 tbsp virgin olive oil

1 tbsp aged balsamic vinegar

2 small cloves garlic, crushed or chopped

2 tbsp fresh basil, roughly chopped

1 tsp fresh savory, chopped

Sea salt and pepper taste

Remover the top of the tomatoes and cut them into chunks over a bowl so all the juice ends up in the bowl with the tomatoes. Add the oil, aged balsamic vinegar,  basil, savory and garlic. Mash with a potato masher to get the juice out of the tomatoes and to mix the oil with the juice. Season with sea salt and pepper to taste. Let the salad sit for at least an hour for all the flavours to blend together. Longer if you have the time.  This will also allow the nutrients in the garlic (another prebiotic) to be potentiated and strengthen all the flavours of the salad.

To serve: Cut slices of fresh sourdough bread. Place a slice on a plate and ladle the salad on top. You can butter the bread if you like, to get a good source of butyrate, a short chain fatty acid that aids gut health. Yum! Enjoy.