Edouard de Pomiane's Tomates a la Creme

De Pomiane's Cooking in Ten Minutes may be my favorite cookbook.  If you don't know it, you're in for a treat.  

I wait all year to cook his extremely simple tomatoes in cream, which may be the first three-ingredient dish I ever attempted.  All it takes is butter, tomatoes and cream.  (Although I admit that I occasionally break down and sprinkle on a little salt as well.)  And of course, you do need a bit of bread to mop up the spectacular sauce. 

Here's the recipe, via Elizabeth David, from the 60th anniversary issue of Gourmet (September 2001).

I'd print the photograph - the tomatoes are right here, sitting in front of me - but this dish is the best argument I know against taking pictures of your food.  And I wouldn't want to do a single thing that might deter you from cooking this most delicious summer dish.

(Although the version printed above is the one I've always used, I've just discovered that the version in the first English translation, pictured above, from 1948 is slightly different. It includes not only salt and pepper, but also onions.  Do what you will with this information.)

And since I'm looking through this book, I thought I'd toss in the preface so you get some sense of the delightful Dr. de Pomiane.  (He was a serious scientist who also had a long-time cooking show on French radio.)