This recipe can be served with almost anything: chicken, salmon or other firm fish, grilled meats, roasted eggplant, hummus, Greek yogurt, or couscous just to name a few. Cherry tomatoes make the nicest presentation, but use any variety of tomatoes, and any variety of summer squash will work well.
Serves 4-6 as a topping for your dish
Ingredients
1 ½ lbs cherry tomatoes, cut in half
½ lb summer squash, ½" dice
1 small shallot, thinly sliced
1 T chives
¼ cup mint leaves, torn in half
1 jalapeño, very thinly sliced
4 T brown sugar
½ cup white wine or champagne vinegar
1 T salt
3/4 cup olive oil
2 T freshly grated ginger
2 T freshly minced garlic
2 t ground cumin seed
1 t cayenne (use more or less depending on your spice tolerance)
½ t ground turmeric
½ t ground cardamom
½ t fresh ground black pepper
Directions
- Combine sugar, vinegar and salt in saucepan and bring to a boil. Remove from heat and reserve.
- Heat olive oil until hot but not smoking and add ginger, garlic, cumin, cayenne, turmeric, cardamon and black pepper. Sauté quickly to gently toast the garlic and infuse the oil with the spice flavor. Add to the vinegar solution and bring to a rolling boil.
- Place tomatoes, squash, shallot, chives, mint and jalapeños in a large bowl. Pour hot vinegar-spice solution over the tomatoes. Let cool then add to any number of dishes.
