Tomato Panzanella with White Bean Purée

I made this as an appetizer for a late summer dinner party at someone else's house, which meant that, in addition to being delicious, it needed to be very portable and easy to assemble once I got where I was going. This fit the bill perfectly. I did almost everything at home, packed the various components into many deli cups, and all I needed to do at the party was cut the tomatoes and assemble the final dish.

The base is a creamy cannellini bean and roasted red pepper purée, made golden with a little turmeric, which is topped with as many different colors and varieties of late summer tomatoes as you can find. A garlicky rice wine vinegar and sumac dressing goes over the tomatoes, followed by toasted pita and purple basil. The tomatoes are salted directly on the platter so that none of their juices are lost; those juices mingle with the dressing and purée and are soaked up by some, but importantly not all, of the pita.

This is best assembled just before you eat it.

Serves four as a summer appetizer.

2 large heirloom tomatoes, preferably different colors and varieties

1/2 pint multicolored cherry tomatoes

1 15-oz can cannellini beans, drained and rinsed

1 red pepper

2 pitas

1/4 cup purple basil, roughly chopped

1 clove garlic

Juice of 1/2 lemon

2 Tbsps rice wine vinegar

6 Tbsps olive oil, divided

1/4 tsp turmeric

1/2 tsp sumac

Salt to taste

Preheat the oven to 425.

Place the red pepper on a baking sheet and roast it whole, turning as necessary, until the skin is charred and blistered all over and the pepper has softened. This will take about 25 minutes. Set aside until cool enough to handle, then peel off the charred skin and remove the stem and seeds.

Put the roasted pepper into a blender with the cannellini beans, lemon juice, turmeric, 2 Tbsps of the olive oil and salt to taste. Blend until smooth and creamy, adding a little more olive oil if necessary to get the consistency you want. You are looking for something soft enough to spread easily across the platter but substantial enough to support the tomatoes.

For the dressing, put the garlic, rice wine vinegar, remaining 1/4 cup olive oil and sumac into a blender and blend until the garlic is completely incorporated. There is deliberately no salt in the dressing as the tomatoes will be salted separately.

Toast the pitas in your toaster until crisp, then break them into irregular bite-sized pieces.

Spread the white bean and roasted red pepper purée over the bottom of a large serving platter.

Thinly slice the heirloom tomatoes and arrange them over the purée. Halve the cherry tomatoes and scatter them over and around the tomato slices. Sprinkle the tomatoes with finishing salt. Don't do this in advance as you want all the lovely juices the salt draws from the tomatoes to end up right there on the platter.

Drizzle the tomatoes generously with the garlicky dressing. You may not need all of it, so use your judgment rather than automatically emptying the blender over the dish.

Scatter the toasted pita over the tomatoes, followed by the chopped purple basil.

Serve immediately, while most of the pita is still crunchy and just a few pieces have started soaking up the tomato juices and dressing.