Nigel Slater's recipes with Thyme

Nigel Slater has a wonderful piece about cooking with thyme in the Guardian at the moment: Roast tomato, thyme & goats cheese, and Thyme & Lemon cake.

Thyme Thymus Vulgarius (Common Thyme) grows in our garden on the worst ground, dry sun-baked patches, and occasionally wound around the sage.  It's a great herb to put with vegetables and gives sweet recipes an aromatic quality.   I have one thyme plant in London, currently being rehabilitated from the supermarket shelf into a proper plant. 

Thyme in the garden

Last night I tried a version of the first recipe, which I made with a salad as follows:

Nigel Slater's roast tomatoes, thyme and goat's cheese with herb salad (as I made it)

The tomatoes:

six medium vine tomatoes (the kind with the slightly rough surface that have the sweet smell of greenhouses still about them)
half a dozen sprigs of lemon thyme (if you buy a bagful, freeze the rest)
half a bulb of garlic cloves (in their skins)
a little olive oil

The cheese:

another handful of young thyme leaves (from the top of the sprig, if you've brought a packet)
a roll of goat's cheese (little individual goats' cheeses would be better, but were were economising)

The salad:

a bag of organic, washed leaves (I'm in London, no lovely fresh lettuces)
a dozen leaves of both basil and thyme
half a bag of fresh broad-beans
half the juice of a lemon
a dash of olive oil
salt and pepper

Wash and half the tomatoes and put (cut side up) onto a baking tray with the garlic cloves (in their skins) mixed in between.  Season and pour over olive oil .  Put in the oven to roast (about 180 degrees).

Now make the salad.  Put a pan of water to boil and rub the lemon half and a clove of garlic around the salad bowl.  Shell the broad-beans into the boiling water and leave for five minutes.  Then drain, run over with cold water and shell.  Put half aside for another day.

Then shake in the leaves and mix with the herbs and broad-beans.  Squeeze in the lemon, olive oil and seasoning.  Mix and set aside for later.

The finished salad

Have a cup of tea or do the washing up, then after about twenty minutes take out the roasting dish.  Pick out the garlic cloves, peel off the skins and put the soft cloves into a bowl.  Put the tomatoes back in the oven to continue to roast.  To the mixture of garlic add the thyme leaves, a little Maldon and pepper (I finally bought some) and the mix together.  When the tomatoes have started to caramelise slightly (after another 15 minutes or so) take them out of the oven and spread a little bit of the mixture onto the tops of the tomatoes.

Slice the roll of goats cheese into 1/2cm thick slices.

The goats cheese

Put one slice of cheese on each tomato half and a bit more thyme on the top.

The tomatoes ready to go back in the oven

Return to the oven (I put the grill on at this stage).  Heat until the cheese begins to go golden.

The finished product

We ate it with the salad and rosemary focaccia bread.  They were nice (but better the following evening when we had the remainder cold without the cheese for a picnic).

And the washing up ...