Angela Hartnett's tomato, mozzarella and basil salad

This is Angela Hartnett's take on the classic Italian salad. The tomatoes are roasted in order to concentrate the flavour. Use a good-quality mozzarella for this recipe.

📝 Ingredients

• 8 plum tomatoes
• 8 cherry tomatoes halved
• picked from 6 sprigs thyme leaves
• (good quality) olive oil
• 2 tbsp granulated sugar
• 1 clove garlic sliced
• 2 × 125g balls buffalo mozzarella sliced
• a small bunch basil

👨‍🍳 Instructions

1. 1To prepare the plum tomatoes, make a little incision with a sharp knife in the top of each one. Blanch the tomatoes in boiling salted water for 10 seconds. Drain and immediately plunge into a bowl of iced water – this will make the skins easier to remove. Peel and cut in half lengthways. Remove all the seeds with a teaspoon.
2. 2Heat the oven to 120c/fan 100c/gas mark ½. Drizzle the base of a shallow roasting tin big enough to hold all of the tomatoes with 1 tbsp olive oil, season and sprinkle in half the sugar. Put the plum and cherry tomatoes in the tin, cut-side up, in one layer. Drizzle with 1 tbsp olive oil, season and sprinkle with the remaining sugar. Scatter the thyme leaves and garlic slices over and around the tomatoes.
3. 3Bake for 1-2 hours until the tomatoes begin to shrivel up. Halfway through the cooking time, turn the plum tomatoes over and remove the cherry tomatoes.
4. 4Toss the cooked tomatoes with the mozzarella and basil, and check the seasoning. Serve on individual plates with a drizzle of olive oil.