slow-cooked tomato with feta and basil salad recipe

Use your oven to 'sun-dry' your tomatoes. This retains their sweetness, does not dry them out too much and preserves them short-term.

For 4 as a main course

• 500g fresh tomatoes (a selection of colours and sizes looks good), halved
• Leaves from a few sprigs of fresh thyme
• 6-7 cloves of garlic peeled and slithered
• Extra virgin olive oil
• 5 good handfuls of any fresh salad and annual herb leaves
• 3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• Maldon salt and black pepper
• Juice of 1/2 lemon
• 100g feta, crumbled (or mozzarella)
• 20g pine nuts, dry fried

Preheat the oven to 220C/gas mark 7. Place the tomatoes, spaced out in a single layer on a baking tray. Put a sliver of garlic on each, sprinkle over the fresh or dried thyme, a good drizzle of extra virgin olive oil, salt and black pepper and put into the pre-heated oven for 10 minutes.

Then turn down the oven to 120C/gas mark 1/2 and cook the tomatoes for a further 50-60 minutes. If using cherry tomatoes, check them half way through the cooking time, as they will cook a little quicker and may need removing earlier from the oven. Take out of the oven and allow to cool.

Put the herbs and salad leaves into a mixing bowl. Pour over the extra virgin olive oil, lemon juice and a little salt and black pepper and toss well to combine. Divide the salad leaves and herbs over 4 plates and position a quarter of the slow cooked tomatoes on each. Finally sprinkle over some feta and pine nuts.

This recipe featured in the 2015 Sarah Raven Diary.