Salted Tomato Salad

Keep the tomatoes out of the fridge from the day you buy them.

Cold is what ruins most tomato salads. Below about 12C/54F the fruit stops making the volatile compounds that give it its smell, and a day in the fridge flattens it permanently, so the salad tastes of acid and water however good the tomatoes looked.

Cut the core out of each large tomato.

Cut the tomatoes into pieces no thinner than 1cm, wedges for the large ones and halves for the small, so they hold their shape once salted.

Put them in a bowl and scatter over the flaky salt.

Turn them once and leave them for 20 minutes, until a pool of juice has gathered in the base of the bowl and the cut faces look wet and glassy.

Put the sliced shallot in a small bowl with the red wine vinegar for those same 20 minutes, which takes the raw heat out of it.

Rub the cut face of the halved garlic clove around the inside of a wide serving dish, then discard the clove.

Lift the tomatoes into the dish with a slotted spoon, leaving every drop of juice behind in the bowl.

Whisk the olive oil into the tomato juice, along with the shallot and its vinegar, until it thickens slightly and turns cloudy.

That juice is the dressing, and it is the whole reason for salting first. Oil and vinegar poured over unsalted tomatoes sit on top of them, while salted fruit gives up its own sugar and savour into something you cannot buy.

Pour the dressing back over the tomatoes.

Season with the ground peppercorns.

Taste before adding more salt, since the tomatoes have already taken up most of the 5g.

Tear the basil over at the last moment. Torn basil blackens within minutes of meeting salt and acid, and leaves shredded in advance go dark and slimy.

Serve at room temperature within half an hour, while the tomatoes are still firm.