MIKEY BELL

These toasts calls for not much more than chopping a tomato, whisking cheese and mixing oil with a herb.

This is the breakfast you make when you can’t be bothered, but you need to appear to be.

In other words, this is what I have made for my Mam when she has visited on a Sunday and I was unforgivingly hungover and had told her the night previously that it was ‘only going to be a quiet one’.

In fact, that very morning, I made this Soda Bread and lived to tell the tale.

To be honest you can vary it up as much as you want, I’ve also made this with feta in place of the goats cheese, and have swapped the basil for rosemary, but the incarnation you see here is my favourite.

There’s a reason I call these three components – the tomato, the cheese and the basil oil – my culinary Destiny’s Child, because when I tell you that the flavours were born to harmonise, I am really not lying.

Makes enough for 4 – 5 toasts

For the basil oil

5 tbs olive oil

A handful of fresh basil

For the toasts

1 large tomato – much better off a vine 

1 clove garlic

80g goat’s cheese

2 tbs full-fat cream cheese

1 tsp honey

Around 4 – 5 slices thick bread

1. For the oil, put the olive oil in a bowl or small cup, chop up the basil as finely as you can be bothered and combine the two. Leave to one side to infuse.
2. Put the tomato on a chopping board and using a knife, savage it. By this I mean chop it into small, small chunks.
3. Grate the garlic over the chopped tomatoes using a fine grater, pinch in a generous scattering of salt and pepper and using a fork, toss up the tomatoes so that the garlic is distributed throughout.
4. Put both cheeses in a bowl with a little pinch of salt and pepper and the honey, and using a whisk, beat until fully blended.
5. Toast your bread slices to your perfect level of toastiness (I like it when some of the edges are slightly charred) and then spread with the whipped cheese.
6. Spoon over a helping of the tomatoes and then serve with a drizzle of the basil oil.