Pipirrana de Jaén

Pipirrana de Jaén is Andalucía's chopped summer salad from olive country: ripe tomato, cucumber, green pepper, onion, garlic, vinegar, and the kind of olive oil that makes itself known. What makes the Jaén version its own is not only the chopping. It is the majao, a mortar paste of garlic, cooked egg yolk, oil, vinegar, and tomato juice that binds the salad so it becomes spoon food, not a bowl of loose vegetables.

The method that decides it is simple and exact. Chop everything fine, keep the tomato juice, and work the yolk dressing before you fold it through. That little paste turns the juice creamy and sharp enough to carry the bread. Rush it, or leave the vegetables in big pieces, and the dish loses the reason it works.

No hace falta haber pisado España. If you cannot find pimiento verde italiano, use a Cubanelle pepper; a small green bell pepper works at a pinch, but use less because it is sweeter and thicker. If the tomatoes are pale and hard, there is no clever rescue. Wait for the ones that smell of tomato before the knife touches them. My Margin beside this one says only: more bread than you think.