Tomato (Plum) recipes

Heavily charred sourdough carries a punchy mixture of raw plum tomatoes crushed with spicy nduja and a little olive oil, piled onto clouds of whipped ricotta. This is the kind of thing you make when you have a glut of ripe plum tomatoes and want something that tastes more than the sum of its parts. It works as a starter, a light lunch, or a very good snack.

A proper, uncooked Mexican salsa where ripe plum tomatoes are the whole point. Everything is chopped by hand rather than blitzed — you want texture, not purée — and the result is bright, fresh and fiery in a way that a jar from the supermarket never gets close to. Ready in under 20 minutes and endlessly useful, this works as a dip, a taco topping or spooned over grilled chicken.

A proper shakshuka needs tomatoes that actually taste of something — plum tomatoes in August are exactly right. This is the version you make on a weeknight when you want something satisfying in under half an hour: a deep, smoky, slightly spiced sauce with eggs poached directly in it, eaten straight from the pan with a heap of crusty bread. It is unapologetically simple and completely delicious.

Spiced lamb köfte nestle into a deeply flavoured plum tomato sauce, finished with a dollop of garlicky yoghurt and a drizzle of chilli butter. This is a weeknight bake that eats like something you have been slow-cooking all day — the plum tomatoes collapse into a rich, brick-red sauce that is the backbone of the whole dish.