Beginnings - Tomato and Shallot Winter Salad

Hi, my name is Sarah. I'm a junior at the University of Pennsylvania. Busy as this makes me, whenever I have a bit of spare time, I try and come up with a new recipe or change an old one to either fit the millions of food no-nos amongst my friends and I or find that prefect comfort food. One of the things you'll quickly realize is that my favorite ingredients are shallots, tomatoes (or sun-dried tomatoes, rarely together if possible), and kalamata olives.

What I threw together tonight is actually what inspired me to start this little venture in recipe blogging. It's a light take on Real Simple's Lamb Chops with Tomatoes and and Olives Recipe. I have several variations, mostly developed from a need to use up ingredients just before they go bad. Tonight I made it into Tomato and Shallot Winter Salad. There is a variation I tend to make in the summer when I'm really feeling an addition of greens (I'll throw in options for that at the end)

[Photo will go here once my camera is working.]

Like most college students, I don't go shopping terribly often. However, when I do, I purchase in large supply kalamata olives, roma tomatoes, shallots (usually french, since that's what they have here in Philly), and garlic. The first three I usually buy at Whole Foods and they tend to keep for a rather long time. I'm also cheap, so when I can, I buy ingredients at this localized branch of a grocery chain who's name I don't actually know. They have a lot of international ingredients and lovely enough sell garlic in bulk packages. The shallots and tomatoes have a tendency of going bad at the same time, so this recipe ends up making a filling snack or meal depending on how I've been eating the rest of the day.

This can be made in many sizes, below is enough for two or three people to have good sized servings.

3 large shallots (or 6 smaller ones) ; halved and chopped into thick pieces.
1/3 to 1/2 cup kalamata olives; cut in half (for faster prep just use whole)
6 roma tomatoes; quartered
1 clove garlic minced
4-6 cloves garlic whole (optional, read on)
1/2tsp paprika
1/2tsp kosher salt (can use regular table salt if you want)
1/4tsp pepper
2tbs oil
paprika to taste later on

I like to put the oil in a 9 in. skillet with the salt, pepper and paprika right away, and toss the shallots in as I'm cutting.

Once you've got everything cut, put the minced garlic and whole garlic cloves into the skillet also. I like to use up all those garlic cloves that are too small to really put in any other recipe. All of these things get cooked until the shallots are soft (if you like to cook onions, you'll probably have a good idea where you'll want to stop with the shallots also). Since I cooked these off to keep them from going to waste, the shallots were really purple, a sure sign that they're going by quickly. I cooked them until they were no longer purple. The moment you look away though, a few will go brown in the oil, make sure to take if off as soon as possible if that starts to happen.

Putting in the whole cloves of garlic cooks out the really strong taste and leaves you with just a faint taste, it's a nice little crunch to a rather soft salad. If you want, you can substitute with pine nuts as well.

Now, in a mixing bowl big enough to hold the tomatoes, put in your tomatoes, olives and cooked shallots. Mix this thouroughly and if you've taken a taste and it seems kind of bland, add more paprika to taste, mixed in thouroughly.

I like to put this straight onto a plate and sprinkle some paprika very lightly on the top.

If you're looking to make this into a greener salad, add the above into a bowl of arugala and mix, but when cooking the shallots, use one more tbs of oil, a full tsp of salt and 1/2tsp of pepper. This way you won't have to use anything else to dress. I also like to add a bit more olives when I'm doing it that way. Another alternative is to use baby spinach or a nice selection of mixed greens.

Enjoy!
Sarah