Pan con Tomate y Jamón Ibérico
Catalan Tomato Bread with Ibérico Ham- Yield
- Serves 2
- Active
- 10 minutes
- Total
- 30 minutes, including bringing the ham to room temperature
- Difficulty
- Easy
The story
Pa amb tomàquet, bread rubbed with tomato, is the everyday bread of Catalonia, eaten at breakfast and alongside most meals; Pan con tomate is its Spanish name. The tomato reached Spain from the Americas in the sixteenth century, but the earliest references to the dish date from the 1880s, when people in Catalan farmhouses softened stale bread with tomato and olive oil. In 2021 Spain's postal service chose it as the dish of Catalonia for a stamp series on Spanish gastronomy. The method is simple and still argued over. Catalans rub a cut tomato over thick slices of pa de pagès, country bread, then add salt and a stream of olive oil, while in Andalusia the oil often goes on first. Garlic is optional. Outside summer, Catalan cooks rely on tomàquet de penjar, a tomato grown in small clusters and hung in a cool, dry place so it keeps into the winter. The photographer Leopoldo Pomés devoted a whole book to the ritual, Teoria i pràctica del pa amb tomàquet. Common partners include serrano or ibérico ham, fuet and botifarra sausages and tortilla. For a dinner for two, this starter needs almost no cooking: set out the bread, the ham and a bottle of cava.
Ingredients
- 3 oz thinly sliced jamón ibérico
- 4 slices rustic country bread, about 1/2 inch thick
- 1 garlic clove, halved (optional)
- 2 very ripe medium tomatoes, halved crosswise
- Flaky or fine sea salt
- 2 to 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, preferably Spanish arbequina
Sold pre-sliced at cheese counters, Spanish specialty shops and online; jamón serrano is the closest and less expensive substitute.
Method
- Take the ham out of the refrigerator 20 to 30 minutes before serving and lay the slices on a plate so they come to room temperature; the fat should look glossy and translucent.
- Toast or grill the bread until crisp and golden at the edges but still slightly soft in the center, 2 to 3 minutes per side.
- If using garlic, rub the cut side lightly over one side of each warm toast.
- Rub the cut side of a tomato half firmly over the same side of each slice, working from the crust inward, until the crumb is pink and moist and little more than the skin is left in your hand.
- Sprinkle with a little salt and drizzle with olive oil.
- Serve at once, with the ham on a separate plate or draped over the bread just before eating.
Note: Make the bread just before eating, because it turns soggy within minutes. Catalan cooks rub on the tomato first, then add salt and oil.
Buying tip: Buy jamón ibérico imported from Spain, sliced as thin as possible; 'de bellota' on the label means the pigs were fed on acorns, the top grade. Buy only what you will eat that day, since sliced ham loses aroma quickly.