I have a confession to make: I have been making Rezel Kealoha’s tomato tartine non-stop since it came out on Comfort Kitchen. No, actually, the first time I made it was when we were still editing her video. It has been my go-to breakfast when I don’t feel like making fried rice from leftovers or when I simply can’t stand my boyfriend’s French toast anymore.
And it turns out I am not alone.
After all, this is perhaps the easiest recipe we’ve done so far—next to the perfect fried egg maybe.
[READ: This food photographer perfected the fried egg]It takes five minutes—yes, it’s possible if you prep the tomato and other things while you wait for your bread to toast nicely. Okay, 10 minutes at best if like Rezel aka our favorite San Francisco-based Filipina food stylist and recipe developer, you like to take your time. In her case, it’s dancing to Mariah while she waits. We had to take it out of the video (sad, we know) out of sheer respect to the (skinny) legend herself, who has a memoir coming!
But really, what I love about this recipe is its use of the simplest ingredients, the ones you can always count to have in the pantry: bread, tomatoes, garlic, salt and olive oil. Plus, it’s the perfect recipe to salvage overripe tomatoes and the dreaded “pwet” of the bread loaf (which I love BTW) thus preventing food waste.
As we speak, I have just saved a week-old slice of sourdough bread I’ve frozen from being thrown away. How else but by making this tomato tartine?
The toast also lends itself to many possibilities, not to mention it’s wildly customizable, meaning you can adjust anything to your liking: the crispness of the bread, the amount of tomatoes—or if you’re going to use tomatoes in the first place—or whether or not you’d like to overpower your toast with excess garlic. One time, I discovered I was out of tomatoes (a rarity) just when I had finished grating garlic on the toast. I ended up eating it with bangus in oil. Not bad.
And no, don’t give me that “mahal ang kamatis” or “I can’t find tomatoes in the supermarket” excuse because we got you. We know where you can get them for as low as P10/kilo, direct from farmers! That’s like hitting two birds with one stone. Of course, the other bird is helping struggling farmers, but you already know that. Right?
Nolisoli Comfort Kitchen comes out Monday and Thursday nights on our IGTV.
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Writer: CHRISTIAN SAN JOSE
