Today, I’d like to take my hat off to salsa. It is the kitchen’s equivalent to the little black dress – it’s versatile, looks great and never goes out of fashion. You can serve it as a dip, throw it on some brushetta, dress it up as a side dish or serve it as a salad.

Salsa goes nicely with barbecued meats or topped on grilled sourdough or ciabatta.

Salsa’s virtues don’t stop at its versatility. It also happens to be a cinch to make. Let’s face it, it’s hard to stuff this one up. The trick is buying good-quality tomatoes (not those dodgy half-ripe ones at your supermarket). Spend the extra cash and find some vine-ripened tomatoes that an Italian wouldn’t turn their nose up at.

For this tomato salsa, I went with cherry tomatoes, but only because that’s all I had in the fridge. For those of you who don’t like capers, you can leave them out. If you want to serve this as a salad, just cut the tomatoes a little bit thicker and Bob’s your uncle.

Recipe adapted from the wonderful Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall:
Serves 4

Ingredients:
500g ripe, tasty tomatoes
1/2 small red onion, very finely chopped
1-2 tbs capers, rinsed
a small squeeze of lemon juice
2 tbs extra virgin olive oil
1 pinch of sugar
a few torn mint or basil leaves
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Method:
Cut the tomatoes into quarters, then halve each quarter widthways.

Place in a bowl and lightly stir in the onion and capers.

Put the lemon juice and oil in a small jug or bottle, season well and add the sugar. Whisk together (or shake it together), then trickle over the tomatoes. Scatter over the torn mint or basil leave and serve with some grilled sourdough bread (or rice crackers if you’re wheat/gluten sensitive like me). Yum!