How to Make Tomato Salsa Brushchetta

Bruschetta is a famous Italian antipasto.  A friend of mine makes really good bruschetta with tomato, much better than the ones served at La Tegola.  So I'm off to the test kitchen and made this:


Ingredients:

6 Medium sized Baguio tomatoes cubed
2 Tbsp Balsamic Vinegar
4 Tbsp Olive Oil
1 Tbsp Pesto
2 cloves finely minced Garlic
1 tsp Lemon/Calamansi
Salt and pepper to taste
Baguette/French Bread

Prepare the Salsa:

Chop tomatoes, place them in a bowl.  Add balsamic vinegar, olive oil, pesto, lemon and season with salt and pepper to taste.  Store in the refrigerator.  Serve a few hours later when the tomatoes have sipped in the flavor.  Adding some fresh basil or cilantro will enhance the flavor.

Prepare the Bread:


Toast the bread without coating it in olive oil first. Toast on a griddle for 1 minute on each side. Take a sharp knife and score each slice 3 times. Rub some garlic in the slices and drizzle half a teaspoon of olive oil on each slice. This is the more traditional method of making bruschetta.  Alternatively, simply brush olive oil on one side, rub with garlic then toast.

This also goes well with paper thin pizza bread, you may use this pizza dough recipe and roll it really thin, you may add some herbs to give it a kick.

You might also want to try mushroom bruschetta.

Mushroom Bruschetta

Some friends are crazy over mushroom bruschetta. Indulgent as they are, aside from the pizza, they finished two orders of it at Tinder box. That's 6 servings for about P300 per order. So they decided to ask a common friend to cook for us. The latter unselfishly is willing to show his culinary skills but is never generous to share those techniques. So he asked us to prepare the following ingredients:

• dried Porcini mushroom
• white button mushroom
• shallots
• garlic
• fresh basil
• salt and pepper
• parmegiano

This evening, I tried to figure out how to cook it with the ingredients I have on hand at home, it tastes good enough; I finished about 6 pandesal bread from french baker with it.

Ingredients:

• 2 garlic cloves chopped
• shallots (substitute with garlic and onion)
• 15 grams of dried porcini
• chopped fresh basil
• 1  tbsp  virgin olive oil
• salt and pepper to taste
• 5 slices french bread/baguette
• 2 tbsp dry white wine
• 1 tsp butter
• 1 tbsp grated pamesan cheese
• 1 chopped tomato (optional)
• truffle oil (optional)
• parsley (optional)

Mushroom mixture:

1. Soak dried mushroom in hot water for about 15 minutes, then slice.
2. In a sauce pan, saute garlic and shallots in olive oil and butter.
3. Add white wine and reduce.
4. Add the sliced mushroom, saute for about 5-8 minutes until cooked.
5. Season with salt and pepper.
6. Toss in chopped fresh basil*, tomato and cheese while hot.
7. Remove from fire.

* in the absence of fresh basil, i substituted it with pesto sauce.

Variation: instead of wine, add a dash of steak seasoning and worcestershire sauce when the mushrooms are almost cooked.

Prepare the bread:

1. Slice and toast french bread.
2. Remove from toaster, while hot: rub fresh garlic and brush with extra virgin olive oil.
3. Spoon the mushroom mixture on the bread, drizzle a few drops of truffle oil and garnish with basil/parsley and cheese when ready to serve.

Porcini mushroom are available in:

Santy's for P146 per 20 grams
Werdenberg Intl for P2888 per 500 grams.