How to be a flexible cook - part 2

Tomato and Corn Summer Salad

Ingredients

• Flaky sea salt
• Black pepper
• Extra virgin olive oil
• 500g tomatoes (of different colours, shapes and sizes)
• 2 tbsp red wine vinegar
• 4 spring onions
• 4 cobs of corn
• Handful of almonds
• 50g pecorino
• 1 small bunch mint, leaves picked
• 1 small bunch basil, leaves picked

Method

Preheat the oven to 180°C. While you are waiting for the oven to warm up, tear up the slices of sourdough bread and season with a generous amount of flaky sea salt, black pepper and olive oil.

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Bake the bread on a baking tray for 10-15 minutes - cooking time is dependent on the size of the bread.

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Whilst the bread is cooking grab a chopping board and chop the tomatoes into different sized chunks. Place the tomatoes into a bowl with a decent amount of salt and a splash of red wine vinegar, allow them to sit for 20 minutes to an hour. Finely chop the spring onions and then fill a bowl halfway with cold water and set the spring onions aside to soak.

Placing the end of the corn in a bowl, use a sharp knife, gently cut the corn off the cob using a sawing motion. When the croutons are ready, take them out of the oven, and in a large mixing bowl, combine the corn, spring onions and croutons with the tomatoes. Roughly chop the almonds and sprinkle them over the top of the salad. Crumble your pecorino over the top of the salad.

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Drizzle over the olive oil and toss the salad. Remove the mint and basil leaves from the stalks, adding them to the salad. Top with the remaining almonds, pecorino, basil and mint.

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Taste, stop and balance. Add more olive oil or salt if it needs, or for more acidity, add more vinegar.

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Any unused croutons can keep in an airtight container for a week.