This is one of those wonderfully successful recipes that have been created by a problem. In the hot summers of southern Spain, the skins of vegetable fruits become very tough and unpalatable, so skinning them for salads is essential.  So a salad was created that consisted of skinned tomatoes and red peppers, garlic, olive oil, fresh oregano and salt. The the sum of the parts becoming greater than the individual items.

The ideal is to char the skin of your vegetables over an open fire or barbeque so that you get a subtle smokey flavour to the salad. It is just the thing to do on that barbeque fire that is now at its peak, now that you have finished cooking the meal. But to do that requires planning ahead and having the tomatoes and peppers already in the house.

Life is not always ideal so in the event that you don’t have a fire available, then  the tomatoes and peppers can be held over a gas flame turning them slowly until the skins blacken all over. The skin on the tomatoes will split when cooked enough to peel. The red peppers need to be really quite black before they will peel easily. It is almost impossible to have them too black. Put the peppers to cool in a covered plastic container to help retain the moisture in the fruit.

Peel the vegetables as soon as they are cool enough to handle retaining any juice that comes out of the peppers.

Cut into bite sized pieces and put in a dish with the pepper juice.

Very finely chop a clove of garlic and add to the salad.

Season with salt, a generous amount of extra virgin olive oil and plenty of chopped fresh oregano.

Leave – not in the fridge – for about an hour for the flavours to meld before serving.