- I am making tomato panzanella.

It's a tomato-and-bread salad.

It's one of my favorite things to do with juicy, ripe, miniature tomatoes.

[upbeat music] Now, I learned to make this on a great trip to Italy a few years ago.

So I am combining olive oil, really great sherry vinegar, and then I'm going to put in some salt, some sugar, and some dried Italian herbs.

This is gonna meld into this oil and bloom the flavors.

So in the end, I'm gonna get this great little bit of dried richness with that burst of fresh basil at the end.

That was a little bit of finely-chopped shallot.

And these are capers.

Next time you're thinking about adding pickles or olives to something, I want you to try capers.

They are such a great salad ingredient.

And last, but not least, here come some delicious chopped garlic.

Fresh garlic, always.

You want that burst of flavor.

What this is, is the foundation of my tomato mixture.

Everything I've put in here is not only going to add flavor, it is going to encourage these gorgeous tomatoes to release their natural juices.

The juice of a grape ripe tomato is part of this dressing, and the salt, and the sugar, and all that is going to encourage them to release their moisture.

Now I'm gonna stir these, and I'm going to make sure that every tomato is coated with some of that delicious dressing.

And then I'm gonna let it hang out a little while, maybe 10 minutes or so, so that these ingredients can work their magic, release that tomato juice, and turn into an astonishingly delicious, unusual, sweet, tangy dressing.

Now, the sidekick to these tomatoes is some bread.

And in Italy, they use leftover baked bread.

It's the bread that they have hanging around.

And the stale bread at my house is more often than not cornbread.

So I'm going to use cornbread cubes in my panzanella, and I'm gonna show you how to do that.

[mellow music] [bright music] Spread the stale cornbread cubes on a rimmed baking sheet.

Drizzle with olive oil.

Sprinkle with a little salt and lots of black pepper.

Bake until the cubes are golden and firm, but not rock hard.

Let cool on the baking sheet.

So for those of you who are loyal viewers, you know I made my famous cornbread in an earlier episode.

For those who haven't had a chance to watch, it's not too late to redeem yourselves.

Look at what happened in this bowl of tomatoes when I transferred them into this gorgeous serving bowl.

Those juices have come out and joined the party.

So now we have this amazing tomato juice, vinegar, olive oil mixture that is going to be the perfect dressing.

Now I'm gonna add a couple of more things to this mix.

These are roasted red peppers that I've just cut into little bite-sized strips.

This is gonna add sweetness and another kind of vegetable.

And for crunch, color, and because they're so cute, I am adding a cup full of those sliced seedless cucumbers.

Let me give this a quick stir, and then it's going to be time for my cornbread.

This goes into the mix pretty near serving time.

Just scoop it in.

I like the big pieces, I like the little crumbs that come loose in the oven.

I want you to tumble the entire thing in.

There we go.

Don't miss a one.

And then give this sort of a folding action at this point.

The goal is for this cornbread to absorb some of that delicious dressing.

And you can do this a little bit ahead, but not so far ahead that this cornbread turns soggy and starts to fall apart.

It's this interplay of textures between the tomatoes, the vegetables in this cornbread that makes this panzanella so special and so delicious.

Now, the last thing I'm gonna do is add some fresh basil.

And I have a great trick to show you.

I've just snipped the basil leaves off of the plant, and look at what I'm doing.

I'm taking the larger leaves, and I'm making myself a little bundle, and I'm gonna tuck some of the smaller leaves inside.

And then I'm gonna roll this up so that the outside leaf is holding everything else together.

And then I'm gonna take my knife, and I'm cutting down from the top.

Look at how pretty that is when that falls into the bowl.

This is not only my favorite cornbread salad, this is my favorite tomato salad.

It's interesting, yet familiar.

It's colorful, it's got great texture.

No matter how you serve it, people are gonna love this, I promise.

[dreamy music]