Even though it’s mid-October, I am still picking tomatoes off my plants. Yesterday I had an entire gallon-sized bag of tomatoes that I wanted to use up. So ripe, juicy and sweet- I knew these tomatoes would likely be the last of the season and therefore needed to be used in a special dish. Earlier I had bought some wild salmon, fresh herbs, a sweet onion and some chanterelle mushrooms. Normally, I wouldn’t pair a delicate flavor like chanterelle mushrooms with rich salmon or tomatoes, but I was in a risky mood. What could those flavors be like together? Would the chanterelles get completely lost in the dish? I decided to find out.
I sliced about two cups of the tomatoes in half and gently coated them with olive oil, salt and pepper and fresh thyme leaves. Next I spread them out on a sheet tray and put them in the oven to roast. When sweet tomatoes are slow cooked, they get even sweeter. Candy-like actually. To really slow cook them, I would have had to cook them in a 200 degree oven for two hours, but most week nights don’t allow for that kind of time. So I put these in a 400 degree oven for 10 minutes and reduced the heat to 300 degrees and cooked them for another 10 minutes.
While the tomatoes were cooking, I sauteed the onions and mushrooms with olive oil, added some garlic, salt and pepper and a little more fresh thyme. Once the tomatoes were done, I added them to the mushrooms and onions. Then I seared the salmon separately, just to medium rare, with only olive oil and salt and pepper. I placed the salmon on a plate and covered it completely with the rich tomatoes, chanterelles and onions. For a second I was like, oh man, you took something so great and you wasted it by drowning it in sweet tomatoes! But you know what- it worked! Juicy-sweet layers of flavor capturing the end of summer and the beginning of fall in one dish.
** Also posted on the Foodista blog
