SUMMER RECIPES - Every day, our columnist Marion Sauveur offers you a simple and tasty recipe. Monday, the tomato tartare, a fresh and easy to make dish, to be enjoyed all summer. 

We often take it for a vegetable, but it is indeed a fruit from a botanical point of view. The tomato comes to us from Peru: the Incas were the first to cultivate and eat it. In France, it arrived in the 16th century, but it was then used as an ornamental plant rather than as food. This summer fruit is to be enjoyed between mid-June and mid-October, because the tomato needs to soak up the sun, heat and light. A tomato picked in winter will be bland and floury, while it becomes tasty and fleshy when summer comes. On Monday, Marion Sauveur invites you to cook it in tartare.

Ingredients

3 tomatoes

1 red onion

Basil

Salt

Pepper

Optional: half a ginger root and a lime

The tartar recipe

We start by peeling the tomatoes, or "peeling them". For this, we make a small cross at the base of the tomato and then immerse the tomatoes in boiling water for 30 seconds ... before putting them in ice water to stop cooking. The skin comes off on its own, but the tomato hasn't had time to cook. 

Then cut the tomato in half, remove the seeds and cut them into small dice. And let the juice drain. Do not forget to collect it, to make a vinaigrette or gazpacho later. A red onion and basil leaves are very finely chopped. To give "pep" to your tartare, you can add a little finely detailed fresh ginger in small cubes.

We mix everything with olive oil and balsamic vinegar, then circle it on the plate, where we place two large tablespoons. For freshness, add a few lime zest. Serve chilled with toast.

Where to taste it if you don't want to cook?

For those who do not want to cook and are on vacation in the Lot-et-Garonne, Marion Sauveur advises to stop at the restaurant Restaurant aux Saveurs, in Marmande. Chef Annabelle Boat will prepare her plate prepared around the tomato: a celery and tabasco tartare served with a tomato sorbet, a crushed tomato with savory, cherry tomatoes sautéed in basil and a lemon-thyme tomato sauce. It is served with lean, an unknown white fish with firm and tasty flesh.