Make Spanish Tomato Bread Or

Pan Con Tomate

Recipe For Brunch

Pan con tomate recipe runs deep in Catalonia, where this dish goes by pan tumaca or pa amb tomàquet and simply means bread with tomato. It's part of Mediterranean cooking, using simple ingredients that taste too good not to include as part of your next brunch or luncheon. Where a dish like tomato bruschetta piles on chopped tomatoes, herbs and often a scattering of extra toppings, this Spanish tomato bread keeps things deliberately simple with grated tomato pulp, garlic, olive oil, salt, and little else. This Spanish tomato bread uses grated tomatoes, and that pulp is what soaks into warm, toasted bread rather than sliding off it the way chopped tomato pieces tend to. Particular tomatoes are used for this recipe; the kind that are almost too soft for a salad are, in this case, exactly right, since their extra juiciness and sweetness are what carry the whole dish. Toasting the bread properly is also important; for the bread, pick something like a ciabatta. The bread for this pan con tomate recipe needs to be thickly sliced and broiled just until golden, so that the tomato has something sturdy to sit on without turning soggy within minutes. As soon as the bread comes out of the oven, while it's still hot, a halved garlic clove gets rubbed directly over the cut. Only after that does the grated tomato go on, seasoned simply with salt and the optional lime juice.