Comfort Food: Tomato and anchovy butter toasts

We’ve partnered with Florence Blair to bring you this fresh, seasonal recipe– the perfect addition to your summer aperitivo or a new favourite weekday lunch.

“During the height of summer, tomatoes on toast are a perfect lunch and this is a particularly special version. Baguette is my preferred bread for these as the crust-to-crumb ratio allows you to spoon over as much of the garlicky, lemony anchovy butter as possible (crucial!) while maintaining structure (also crucial!).” – Florence Blair

Serves 2

Ingredients 

For the salad

• 50g unsalted butter
• 4 tbsp olive oil 
• Small tin of anchovies 
• 1 garlic clove 
• 1 unwaxed lemon
• 1 small baguette or roughly half a larger one*
• 2-3 vine tomatoes, depending on size 
• Small bunch of chives 

* I find baguette shapes and sizes vary quite considerably from shop to shop, bakery to bakery. If you are left with some baguette, either save the rest for tomorrow’s toast or blitz into breadcrumbs and freeze for meatballs, gratins, crispy pasta toppings and so on.

Method

1. Gently heat the butter and olive oil in a small pan. Once the butter has melted, add the anchovies and use the end of a wooden spoon to encourage them to break up and almost dissolve into the butter mixture. Finely grate in the garlic and the zest of the lemon, stir, then remove from the heat. Squeeze in the juice of half the lemon and season with lots of coarsely ground black pepper.
2. Slice the baguette in half through its side and into whatever lengths you like. Toast until golden (I do this using my oven grill because baguette slices are too thick for my toaster - do whatever works for you!). Thinly slice the tomatoes and finely chop the chives.
3. Pop the toasts onto a large plate or platter and spoon over most of the anchovy butter. Lay the tomato slices on top, each one overlapping slightly like roof tiles. Season the tomatoes with flaky salt and black pepper. Sprinkle with chives and spoon over the last of the anchovy butter.