Photo: Nina Lincoff
In some ways, offering up a recipe for Bruschetta with Fresh Ricotta and the last of the really phenomenal summer tomatoes is truly mean-spirited. It’s malicious teasing, really. From today onward, there is an ever-shrinking amount of time in which delicious, fresh tomatoes can be procured. Tomatoes are available for purchase year-round thanks to international farming and an industry built around evergreen farmhands. But a tomato from Chile or Mexico is really not a tomato, at least when compared to the beautiful gems that pop up only during the late summer and, hopefully, very early fall. These tomatoes, the true tomatoes, are perfect little orbs of red, yellow and orange sweet-flesh fruit. Sliced and fanned with just a sprinkle of sea salt, a real tomato can be all the positives of nature distilled onto a plate.
But back to the torture. It’s possible that, if you run out to the nearest store or farmer’s market right now, you could find perfect tomatoes: the tomatoes that could really be eaten standing up or over the sink like a piece of fruit. To procure such a tomato, however, you’d have to close your computer, leave now, and go produce shopping immediately. It’s highly suggested you do just that, actually.
Bruschetta, in its most wonderfully basic form, is toasted sliced bread with a variety of spreads, vegetables, fruits and cheese. It could technically qualify as an open-faced sandwich, depending on your definition of that American staple. Regardless, bruschetta offers an easy way to shovel most of the corners of the now-defunct food pyramid into your mouth. Carbs, fat and produce. Maybe a little dairy. The beauty of a bruschetta lies, like most brilliant things, in its elegant simplicity: bread toasted perfectly golden for a hint of nuttiness, creamy spread for a contrasting texture, and fresh and slightly acidic veggies to sing across the other ingredients. It’s an amazing way to highlight unadulterated summer tomatoes.
The problem with such a perfect bruschetta is that it is currently early fall, a little past the deadline for summer tomatoes. The good news, though, is that Bruschetta with Fresh Ricotta is a great vehicle for more than just summer tomatoes. Sure, you should obsess and go out and grab as many tomatoes as you can right now, and eating them atop this bruschetta combination is one of the best ways to gorge on tomatoes in the frame of a meal. But other produce is still out there to use.
Grilled zucchini, squash, and eggplant would be magical on top of this bruschetta. With a rub of fresh garlic sprinkled over rich, creamy ricotta and toasted bread, grilled or roasted vegetables would lie atop a perfect bruschetta bed. Their last bed, most surely, seeing as it’s a bed built solely for their consumption, but a gorgeous one nonetheless.
The fresh ricotta, when mixed together with extra virgin olive oil, fresh herbs and seasoned with salt and pepper is elevated to a simple spread that takes the ricotta beyond just a fresh cheese. It’s imperative however, that you take the time to rub the toasts down with garlic and mix the ricotta together with the oil, herbs and seasonings—simple additions that go a long way. It’s the perfect complement to the nuttiness of a roasted squash or the mellowed sharpness of grilled onions or sautéed shallots. So, while the picture above is a reminder of summer days not-so-long-gone, envision just such a bruschetta topped with the roasted bounty of fall and winter produce. Not such a terrible compromise. One would say, if feeling so inclined, it’s quite the delicious solution to the separation from summer.
Bruschetta with Fresh Ricotta
Ciabatta bread, sliced
4 cloves of garlic, peeled
1 cup fresh ricotta
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
½ cup fresh basil, minced
Salt and pepper to taste
Fresh, ripe tomatoes
1. Mix together the ricotta, olive oil, fresh basil and season to taste with salt and pepper. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until further use.
2. Toast the bread, and then rub with garlic cloves. Top the toasts with the ricotta spread and the top with fresh, sliced tomatoes if in season, or other grilled vegetables if desired.
Recommended toppings:
Grilled zucchini or other winter squash. Wash the zucchini, slice lengthwise and toss with a bit of olive oil, balsamic vinegar (if present), salt and pepper. Grill the zucchini until slightly charred and tender. Top toasts with the garlic, ricotta and zucchini.
Roasted vegetables: Zucchini, winter tomatoes, bell peppers, eggplant, onions, shallots, even starches and roots like sweat potatoes and parsnips when roasted are great toast toppers. Thinly slice or dice the washed vegetables or starches, toss with olive oil, salt and pepper and roast in a pan in the oven at 375 degrees until tender, about 10-20 minutes depending on the delicacy of the food. (Less time for the vegetables, longer time for the starches.) Top toasts and dig in.
