Toasted Bread with Roasted Garlic and Tomato Passata

A friend of mine has a beautiful garden with a large quantity of fruits and fresh vegetables. This summer, he mentioned he was using all of his excess tomatoes to make tomato passata, which I hadn’t heard of before. It turns out, tomato passata is simply a pure tomato product where tomatoes are barely cooked, the skins are removed, and the remaining flesh is blended and strained.

While many folks store their passata after heating it up in sterilized mason jars, I like to make it fresh with a small quantity of fresh tomatoes. I usually go through this within a few days.

For this breakfast recipe, roasted garlic cloves are rubbed on toasted bread, which is then topped with a fresh tomato passata, along with a bit of fresh basil.

If you make your own bread at home, you get added bonus points. The following recipe is meant to serve four people, with two slices of toasted bread per person.

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Toasted Bread with Roasted Garlic and Tomato Passata

A friend of mine has a beautiful garden with a large quantity of fruits and fresh vegetables. This summer, he mentioned he was using all of his excess tomatoes to make tomato passata, which I hadn’t heard of before. It turns out, tomato passata is simply a pure tomato product where tomatoes are barely cooked, the skins are removed, and the remaining flesh is blended and strained.

While many folks store their passata after heating it up in sterilized mason jars, I like to make it fresh with a small quantity of fresh tomatoes. I usually go through this within a few days.

For this breakfast recipe, roasted garlic cloves are rubbed on toasted bread, which is then topped with a fresh tomato passata, along with a bit of fresh basil.

If you make your own bread at home, you get added bonus points. The following recipe is meant to serve four people, with two slices of toasted bread per person.

Ingredients

• 1 head of garlic
• 2 tsp olive oil
• 4 medium-sized very ripe tomatoes
• 8 slices of freshly-baked bread from a country-style loaf
• 2 Tbsp high-quality extra virgin olive oil (as garnish)
• 16 fresh basil leaves (finely sliced, as garnish)
• 2 Tbsp pine nuts (lightly toasted, as garnish)
• A few grains of Maldon Sea Salt (as garnish)

Instructions 

• Preheat your oven to 375F.
• Cut the top off of the unpeeled head of garlic, exposing the tops of the cloves.
• Place the head of garlic on a piece of aluminum foil, and drizzle the olive oil over the exposed cloves.
• Wrap the head of garlic tightly in aluminum foil, and bake in the oven at 375F for roughly 45 minutes, or until the cloves are very soft and turning golden in color.
• While the garlic is roasting, prepare the tomato passata.
• Bring a pot of water to a boil.
• Wash the tomatoes, and remove the cores.
• Cut an “X” into the bottom of each tomato using a sharp knife.
• Place the tomatoes into the boiling water for 20-30 seconds, or until the skin begins to loosen from the outside of the tomatoes.
• Remove the tomatoes from the boiling water, and carefully peel off the skins when they are cool enough to handle.
• Cut the peeled tomatoes in half, and do your best to use your fingers to discard the internal pulp and watery sections with the seeds inside of the tomatoes, reserving the flesh.
• Blend the peeled tomato flesh using an immersion blender until it reaches the consistency of a puree.
• Strain the puree through a fine mesh strainer, and set the tomato passata aside for when you are ready to serve breakfast.
• When the garlic has roasted for 45 minutes, remove the head of garlic from the oven and allow it to cool at room temperature for roughly 15 minutes while you toast your bread.
• Lightly drizzle some olive oil on the slices of bread, and bake in the oven on a wire rack on a sheet tray for about 8 minutes, or until the bread is still soft but just beginning to take on a small amount of golden-brown color.
• Remove the slices of the toast from the oven, and set aside.
• Remove the head of garlic from the aluminum foil wrapper, and carefully squeeze the roasted garlic cloves out of the head of garlic.
• Spread the roasted garlic on the toasted bread.
• Add some of the tomato passata onto each slice of bread, covering the exposed surface.
• Finely-slice some basil, and add the basil on top of the tomato passata.
• Lightly toast some pine nuts, and add some pine nuts on top of each piece of toast.
• Drizzle each piece of toast with some extra-virgin olive oil, and sprinkle each piece with a few grains of Maldon Sea Salt.
• Serve with napkins.

Notes

If you are thinking about trying to bake your own homemade bread at home, but don’t really know where to start, I’d suggest trying to use a recipe that resembles the original overnight no-knead bread recipe. The recipe I’ve stuck with for no-knead bread was popularized by I believe Mark Bittman with the NYTimes around 2006. The ingredients are:
3 cups all-purpose flour, 1 5/8 cups water, ¼ tsp instant dry yeast, 1.5 tsp kosher salt.
Barely mix ingredients the above ingredients together in a large mixing bowl, and cover and let sit at room temperature for 18hrs. Shape and bake in a preheated double Dutch oven at 500F for 30 minutes with the lid on, and then continue to bake for an additional 15 minutes without the lid.
Check out a video online showing the methodology, and try it out at home. It will change your perspective on bread, and make your living space smell like a bakery.