Cheesy Tomato Hot-Honey Toasts

May 10, 2023

Cheese tomatoes and hot honey on a tray with toast.

Photo by Maya Visnyei

I am a sucker for fire-grilled sourdough, smoky and golden and just slightly charry in places, brushed with a glimmer of olive oil. Set it out with high-season tomatoes, a bit of Scotch bonnet honey and chopped burrata—the chopping makes the cheese even more voluptuously creamy. It’s a simple platter that you can serve while camping, but it’s wonderfully effective. Everyone’s drunk on goodness for the rest of the day.

This recipe was excerpted from ‘Cook It Wild' by Chris Nuttall-Smith. Buy the full book on Amazon.

Recipe information

Yield
Serves 4 to 6

Ingredients

At home

1 tsp. coriander seeds

1 tsp. fennel seeds

¼ cup mild honey (such as clover or wildflower)

1 Scotch bonnet chile, halved and seeded

At camp

2 large ripe, flavorful tomatoes, sliced

½ pound burrata (excellent) or Stracciatella (burrata’s even sexier cousin) cheese

Prepared hot honey (thawed)

Kosher salt

½ baguette or country sourdough loaf, thinly sliced

2 Tbsp. best-quality olive oil (thawed)

Preparation

Mix the hot honey
Step 1
Using a mortar and pestle, spice grinder, or a random heavy object, crush the coriander and fennel seeds into a coarse mixture. In a small saucepan or microwavable bowl, combine the crushed seeds and honey.
Step 2
Add the chile—half of it if you’re spice-averse, or all if you like things very hot.
Simmer, steep, and pack
Step 3
Set the pan over medium-high heat or microwave the bowl on high power, bring the honey mixture to a boil, then remove from the heat. Let the mixture steep for 1 hour, then remove and discard the chile.
Step 4
Transfer the mixture to a leakproof condiment bottle and refrigerate or freeze. (It will keep for 2 months, frozen.)
Set out the fixings at camp
Step 5
Prepare a platter with thick, sloppy slices of tomato, the cheese, hot honey, and a little dish of salt.
Grill the bread and serve
Step 6
Drizzle or brush both sides of the bread slices with the olive oil, then toast each side over a fire or in a pan, watching carefully so they don’t burn. Transfer the bread to the platter and serve immediately.

Cooks' Note

The spice from Scotch bonnets lingers. For best results (and less capsicum-in-the-eyeball-induced hyperventilating), wear kitchen gloves while prepping the chile, and wash your board and knife well once you’re done.

The cheese keeps up to 4 days, kept cold; the hot honey keeps up to 2 weeks, unrefrigerated.

Cook It Wild copyright © 2023 by Chris Nuttall-Smith. Photographs copyright © 2023 by Maya Visnyei. Illustrations Copyright © 2023 Claire McCracken. Published by Clarkson Potter, an imprint of Random House. Buy full the book from Amazon or Clarkson Potter.