This super simple salad with lift your tomatoes out of the ordinary

Warmer-day salads make the best of juicy, sun-drenched produce to restore and refresh, particularly on those days so hot you don’t feel like cooking.

Tomatoes with Milk Kefir Dressing from Salad for Days by Alice Zaslavsky.

Warmer-day salads make the best of juicy, sun-drenched produce to restore and refresh, particularly on those days so hot you don’t feel like cooking. Eating with the seasons is easy when salad is involved, since so much of it is about knowing how to treat the veg in the first place, and often doing less rather than more.

Try too my Greekish salad with nectaries and my grilled peach salad.

Tomatoes with Milk Kefir Dressing from Salad is an intriguing and fresh combination.

Salad for Days by Alice Zaslavsky.Photography by Rochelle Eagle. (Murdoch, $45.)

Mixed tomato salad

Ingredients

• 500g assorted tomatoes (all different kinds welcome), thinly sliced against the grain
• Salt flakes and freshly cracked black pepper
• 1 small pinch sugar, optional
• 1 garlic clove, bruised

• ¼ cup (60ml) extra-virgin olive oil

Milk kefir dressing

• 50g crumbly feta
• 100ml milk kefir, plus extra for loosening (see note)
• Dill fronds

Method

1. Arrange the tomato slices artfully on a platter, tessellating and filling gaps with smaller slices.
2. Ten minutes before serving, sprinkle liberally with salt flakes, plenty of pepper and the sugar, if using.
3. While you wait, plonk the bruised garlic into the olive oil to gently infuse. To make the milk kefir dressing, mash the feta through the kefir with a fork.
4. Loosen with a little more kefir or a splash of milk if it’s a bit too chunky.
5. Drizzle tomatoes liberally with dressing and infused olive oil just before serving (holding any stray bits of garlic) and scatter with dill fronds.
6. Season with more pepper and a scant pinch of salt flakes, from a height.

Note: Milk kefir is a fermented milk drink like yogurt. Sheep’s yoghurt or unsweetened acidophilus yoghurt would be suitable substitutes.

Serves 3-4