If you can manage to get hold of some big, beefy, bursting-with-flavour tomatoes, then this is a perfect way to eat them. The fresh pesto bolsters the flavour even more, and makes the tomatoes taste of summer and the Mediterranean sea. Wonderful!

The black sesame seeds aren’t essential, but they make the tomatoes look pretty smart and stylish.

Devour these pesto tomatoes for lunch with some fresh crusty bread and maybe some ham.

Recipe for Big and Beefy Pesto Cheese Tomatoes

Serves 2

Ingredients

• 1 x ripe beefsteak tomato – it may weigh over 500g/1 lb
• 60g/2 oz goats’ cheese – maybe some tangy Riblaire St Varent
• 4 tbsps/60ml/¼ cup fresh pesto
• finishing olive oil
• tactile salt (Malvern) and freshly ground black pepper (or Urfa flakes)
• black sesame seeds if you have them

Method

1. Set your oven to the oven-and-grill setting, 180ºC.
2. Cut off the top of the tomato and core it.
3. Fill it with the pesto.
4. Top it with the cheese.
5. Grill for about ten minutes – watch it – you don’t want the cheese to burn.
6. Serve with a drizzle of finishing oil, the seasoning, and a sprinkling of black sesame seeds.

Music to listen to as you read and cook

Below is Joyce DiDonato and the baroque orchestra, il pomo d’oro (‘the tomato’ – literally ‘the golden apple’ in Italian) with the classic, Lascia ch’io Pianga.