Russian Tomato Salad Bruschetta - Food Wishes

[Music] hello this is chef john from foodwishes.com with russian tomato salad bruschetta that's right i'm predicting that russian italian recipe mashups is going to be the biggest food trend over the next year or so although i should probably mention none of my food trend predictions ever come true which is why you've never had buffalo style haggis so i'm not really sure if that's ever going to come to pass but what i am sure of is this one specific example really was an amazing combination and to get started what we'll do first is the thing we're going to use last and that would be a simple garlic infused olive oil which we will make by stirring a couple tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil into a couple crushed or finely minced scarlet cloves and that's it once that's mixed we'll simply let that sit on the counter for about an hour at which point it'll be ready to use and then once that's set we will move on to this extremely simple russian dressing which will include one part plain yogurt plus two part sour cream and what we'll do is give that a quick stir with our spatula and yes you can use all one or the other but if i had to pick just one i would go with the sour cream since it's a little bit richer and creamier but why choose just use both like i am and then once we've given that a quick stir we will set that aside and move on to slice our onion which in my case is going to be one half of what's known as a sweet onion and just a quick reminder that the fibers on an onion run this direction so what we'll do is cut it lengthwise that way and then we'll turn it and we will slice across very thinly this way and i say slice i really mean shave okay the thinner this is the better and when i say to use a sweet onion i'm talking about varieties like vidalia or walla walla or maui okay something very sweet and mild enough to eat raw oh by the way when you get down to the end don't be a hero don't worry about slicing across the grain at the end just take your time and be careful and slice it up any way you can and then what we'll do as soon as this is sliced is we will quickly transfer it into our bowl of sour cream and yogurt and we will give it a quick toss until it's coated and the reason we're doing this is if you slice onions and just leave them on a cutting board they will actually start to oxidize and get stronger in flavor so we will try to get those into this nice acidic dressing as soon as we can and then once our onions are set we can move on to cutting up our tomatoes and today i'll be using this brandy wine a purple cherokee and a red i'm not sure and let me go ahead and start with this purple cherokee because it is one of the most beautiful tomatoes you will ever see i mean come on look at that and yes we did grow that ourselves and what i like to do after trimming off any rough patches on the skin is take about an eighth of this tomato and i'll take these larger chunks and i'll slice it about an eighth of an inch thick which by the way is way smaller than your classic russian tomato salad where they're usually cut into larger chunks and if i was going to serve this as a standalone side dish salad that is how i'd be doing it but since i'm going to use this salad to make bruschetta i do want these tomatoes to be cut a lot thinner so i went ahead and sliced up about twice as much tomato as i had onion and then what we'll do is transfer those into our bowl and give everything a nice mix and yeah some people do drain the tomatoes but i don't i want every single drop of that sweet delicious juice so ultimately what's going to happen in my case the final dressing is going to be basically half the sour cream mixture and then half accumulated juices which is going to give us a very light very runny but i think perfect sauce to coat this mixture in and then once we've given that a quick initial mix we'll go ahead and season this up with some freshly ground black pepper some cayenne pepper and then last but not least a nice big pinch of salt in fact let's make that two big pinches of salt okay this is a cell that does need to be fairly aggressively seasoned and that's it as soon as we mix all that together we will cover this in plastic and pop it in the fridge until we're ready to top our grilled bread which is our next and last major step and what we'll need is four nice thick slices of italian or french bread and what we'll do is head out to the grill and we will toast these over some beautiful ashy coals and i feel like i say this during every grilling video but please make sure your coals get nice and white before you try to cook over them right not only will be nice and hot but it's going to be a more uniform heat as well and once we place those down we will pretty much continually rotate them and eventually flip those over and we'll grill them until they're beautifully toasted and borderline charred in fact not even borderline okay we definitely want some spots that are charred which is i'm going to talk about later really is the key to a perfect brisket as a lot of my fellow americans like to pronounce it bruschetta and by the way contrary to popular belief this bread should not be stale nor should it be soaked with olive oil yet right i think those are two big mistakes people make when they try to do this all right if you use stale bread by the time the outside is nicely browned the inside is going to be all dry and crumbly which is not what we want okay i still want it to retain a little bit of chewiness in the center so i think we should use fresh or relatively fresh bread and as far as the oil goes i think you're going to get a much better flavor if you put the oil on after it's grilled but anyway we'll keep moving those around flipping in a turn-in turning in a flippin until like i said they are very well browned and definitely charred in a few spots and then what we'll do is pull those off the grill and we will head back inside and while these are still warm we'll go ahead and drench them with our garlic oil and yes if we were making authentic bruschetta we would actually just rub a whole garlic clove on these where it sort of gets grated by the rough surface and then we would top it with our diced tomatoes and olive oil and basil and salt and whatever else we wanted but here because i'm going to top it with that very wet salad i think this garlic infused olive oil works out better and we'll insulate the bread and that's it once those have been garlic oil we can go ahead and serve one up and top it with our salad that i'm definitely using a slotted spoon for okay it's going to have plenty of that dressing coating it and we can always spoon some more on later and then after using the spoon i went to my hands for some fine tuning since i am as you know contractually obligated to take some pictures and after topping these if you want to drip on a little more of that dressing go ahead okay our beautifully grilled and well-oiled bread can handle it and that's it i finished up with some freshly snipped chives although if you want dill also works beautifully or even some basil if you want so you decide i mean you are after all the vladimir putin of your tomato salad on gluten and that my friends is one of the most delicious uses of fresh summer tomatoes you will ever experience right those sweet juicy tomatoes paired with those also sweet but still a little bit sharp onions dressed with that ultra simple tangy creamy sauce plus and it really is the key here the bitterness from the char on the bread really does amplify all those other sweet flavors and really is the magic behind why briscotta is so incredibly delicious and yes this is a large proportion of onions to tomato but if you use the mild sweet varieties this amount really does work wonderfully but fair warning if you try to use a regular yellow onion this amount could be overpowering so a quick tip if you are using non-sweet onions you can actually soak them in water and then rinse them off and dry them to make them a little more mild or to make them a lot more mild you can actually blanch them in boiling water for like 10 seconds or give them a quick saute in a pan for a minute which will take off that hot sharp raw edge but plan a is to find some sweet onions and as i mentioned i only cut the tomatoes this thin if i'm doing brisketa all right so the topping's almost more like a relish or a salsa if you're not into the bread part and you do want to do this as a salad just do everything exactly the same except cut your tomatoes in larger chunks and that will probably work out better texturally as a salad but anyway that's it what i'm calling russian tomato salad bruschetta while i'm not sure if my russian italian food trend prediction is going to be true i do know that this pairing was absolutely outstanding and i think a platter of these would be very much enjoyed by your guests especially the russian italians which is why i really do hope you give this a try soon so please follow the links below for the ingredient amounts a printable written recipe and much more info as usual and as always enjoy you

Channel: Food Wishes

Views: 129,815

Keywords: Russian, Tomato, Salad, Bruschetta, recipe, vegetable, vegetarian, Italian, fast, easy, chef, john, food, wishes, cooking, summer

Id: yFRQwusnloA

Length: 8min 46sec (526 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 17 2021