Stuffed tomato with goat cheese and black olives

(For 4 portions)

• 8 Aikiba Leaves  
• 8 medium tomatoes on a vine  
• 1 tbsp olive oil     
• 120g goat cheese     
• 80g diced black olives 
• 40g diced shallots   
• 100g mascarpone cheese
• 1 pinch turmeric  
• 2 pinches table salt    
• 1 pinch white ground pepper 

• Blanch, peel and cut the tomatoes into quarters.
• Reserve 4 tomatoes for the filling and deseed the other 4 in order to get some perfect flat pieces.
• Lay some cling film on the bottom of 4 half-sphere moulds and cover with the pieces of tomato.
• Deseed the rest of the tomatoes and dice into brunoise.
• Using a mixing bowl, carefully fold the goat cheese with the diced tomatoes, diced black olives and diced shallots. Season to taste and fill the half sphere.
• Close with another cling film, press gently and let set in the fridge for one hour.
• Pull the cling film gently out of each mould and place each tomato sphere in the middle of each plate and brush with the olive oil.
• Melt the mascarpone in a saucepan gently and add the turmeric and the seasoning.
• Let it cool down a little, pass the sauce through a fine sieve and pour the sauce around each tomato sphere.
• Serve with Aikiba leaves. In this recipe, we added a slice of black olive on top of a white boiled egg for decoration.

Recipe: Franck Pontais