A while ago, I had to improvise a quick side dish to accompany grilled salmon. The result was this Italian-style dish, which takes less than 10 minutes to prepare and turned out to be extremely tasty and fruity. This recipe is a side dish for 2-4, depending on the size of the main dish and whether you have other side dishes as well.
The taste depends very much on the tomatoes, which is why you should use aromatic cherry tomatoes rather than regular ones.
- 1 tbsp good olive oil
- 1 smallish onion, finely chopped
- ½ yellow bell pepper, deseeded and cut in small (¼") pieces
- 1-2 dried chilies, crushed
- 300g (10oz) cherry tomatoes, San Marzano or similar, halved or quartered depending on size
- salt
- pepper
- 8-10 basil leaves, cut in stripes
- 1 tsp lemon juice
Heat the oil in a frying pan. Add the onion and fry at moderate heat until slightly yellowish. Add the crushed chilies and chopped bell peppers, stir-fry for 2 minutes.
Add the tomatoes, salt and pepper. Stir carefully so that the tomatoes. The tomatoes don't need to be fried, they just need to be heated up, and they shouldn't fall apart. 1-2 minutes should be enough. The skin should not wrinkle and not come off.
Turn off the heat, add the basil leaves and lemon juice. Stir carefully. Let stand for 1-2 minutes, then serve.
