Nigel Slater’s midweek dinner: baked tomatoes, anchovy, basil

Photograph Jonathan Lovekin

Good as they are on their own, I also like baked tomatoes on thick sourdough toast and over small pasta, such as orecchiette, which have a hollow to hold the tomato’s juices.

Serves 2. Ready in 1 hour.

Set the oven at 180C/gas mark 4.

Slice in half 4 large tomatoes and place them in a roasting tin with a little olive oil trickled over each. Roast in the preheated oven for 20 minutes.

Put 4 tbsp of olive oil into a shallow pan over a moderate heat. Roughly chop 6 spring onions and add them to the pan. Cover with a lid and cook for 5 minutes or so until the spring onions have softened, then lift them out.

Roughly chop 1 medium-sized tomato and add it to the pan with a generous handful of basil and coriander leaves, a grinding of black pepper and a little salt.

In a food processor, reduce 60g of white bread to soft, fine crumbs, then add 5 anchovy fillets and a handful of parsley leaves and stir this all into the spring onion mixture.

Remove the tomatoes from the oven. Divide the crumb and anchovy mixture over them, mounding the stuffing on to each tomato half, and return to the oven for 25-30 minutes until sizzling.

• Use chopped thyme leaves in place of the basil if you like.

• Remove the anchovies from the stuffing if you like. I often include a little Henderson’s Relish as an alternative to boost the savoury notes of the breadcrumb-parsley mixture.

• Plum tomatoes also work well here; allow 3 per person.

• The stuffing is also good for mushrooms. You can use large, cupped mushrooms. Fry them briefly in a little butter and oil, then fill their hollows with the crumb and anchovy mixture and bake as above.