Filtering by Tag: tomatoes

Easy. Tomatoey. Saucy, Tasty.

October 11, 2019 / Geoff Griffiths

Roast 750g of roughly chopped tomatoes with two peeled garlic cloves in olive oil for 40 minutes at 180 degrees C.

Soften a small, finely chopped banana shallot in light olive oil and add your roast tomatoes - prepare for frowns if you use Patience Gray’s ‘Honey From A Weed’ as a trivet.

Add a tablespoon of sherry vinegar and create smoothness with a stick blender. Add sugar, salt and pepper to taste. Lemon juice will brighten things even more if you have some.

Pass through a sieve if you like. I didn’t this time.

Sweet, fruity, tangy, bright. Tomatoey. Use with fish, vegetables or pasta - or what takes your fancy.

Plenty to go at. Freeze some for later if you like.

That’s enough for you to be getting on with.

Bye.

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tags / tomatoes, growing vegetables, sauce, flavour, sweet, home grown, recipe, easy cooking

Tomato Tarte Tatin - 'Stella' Stuff

August 21, 2019 / Geoff Griffiths

Our tomatoes are ripening at last. We only grow outdoors so have to hang on a little longer than anyone with a greenhouse.

I still have this cutting from ‘Stella’ in 2010. It comes out as soon as we have enough ripe fruit for the recipe. A glorious combination of Diana Henry food and Susy Atkins wine. Irresistible stuff.

The recipe does not appear in any of Diana Henry’s cookbooks but is available online.

What? No… just for once bloomin’ well Google it for yourself!

As you prepare onions and caramelise sugar syrup it becomes obvious that you are in for a treat. Oh, grow some herbs. Fingers and nostrils stained with thyme from picking and chopping is another small but wonderful signal that something good is happening in your kitchen.

Susy Atkins’ wine match suggestions always sound infinitely sensible but I decided to go with what we had and paired the tarte with a recent purchase from Lidl. Fruity and aromatic it was. With enough acidity to keep the whole experience in savoury territory.

Here is the finished article with some chunks from a rolled log of French goat’s cheese. A few wedges of roasted beetroot and green salad from our raised beds as well. Pepper and a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil completed what was a simply splendid way to celebrate our first tomato harvest.

Diana Henry offers up “A VINE ROMANCE”

I call it a marriage made in heaven.

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tags / Diana Henry, Susy Atkins, tomatoes, tarte tatin, recipe, home grown

Tomato Risotto, Summer Vegetables

September 27, 2016 / Geoff Griffiths

After recently delighting in this dish at the restaurant home of its creator I just had to take a shot at reproducing some of its loveliness. Our tomatoes were ripe and ready and all but one of the other vegetables to be used were available for picking from the garden.

The first task is to make the essence. Using the recipe's weight of fruit, I extracted at least 100ml more than suggested so I had plenty for the risotto and enough for tomato jelly, sorbet and granita. If they pass muster you might see them here soon. If you do see too much red 'bleed' into your extract you might try passing the liquid only through a double muslin again.

Here is the selection of vegetables ready for addition to the risotto and for final dressing. Those home frozen peas are almost back to room temperature!

It was now time to trust our chef's instructions and, for my first time at least, intrepidly abandon the usual twenty-five minutes constant stirring. In the end the 'single bubble' simmer worked a treat and it was rewarding to have come close to reproducing the special course we had enjoyed so much from Le Manoir's kitchen.

Creamy, dressed with extra vegetables and ready for eating

Our initial experience of this recipe was a small portion, perfectly cooked and presented. My version for dinner at home was larger and full of all the right flavours but could not quite match the indulgence of that first pleasure.

If you are not familiar with the disarming, intelligent and infectiously enthusiastic Monsieur Blanc I urge you to make his acquaintance. He has more joie de vivre than many people find in a lifetime. There is plenty of that on show in this episode of 'Kitchen Secrets'. Flip to around 5min 45seconds for Raymond’s explanation of his tomato essence and risotto dish.

Uploaded by Chef and knife on 2018-12-03.

Most of the tomato recipes from that programme, including the risotto, are here. They vary from those in the 'Kitchen Secrets' book but in any case the risotto must rely on whatever is seasonal, ripe and to hand... be prepared to adapt but, above all, don't compromise on the quality of your tomatoes.

A few more photos are here for you.

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tags / risotto, tomato essence, tomatoes, Le Manoir aux Quat'Saisons, Raymond Blanc, fine dining

#101TTDBNT: Number 5

September 18, 2016 / Geoff Griffiths

101 TTDBNT: Number 5 - Grow Tomatoes

Here's the beauty of #101TTDBNT Number 5... you really don't need to actually do this one until a Thursday in 2017.

Since it's a bit late in the gardener's tomato planting calendar now this is intended as a bit of inspiration for what to do when next season comes round.

We have no greenhouse except for a four shelf plastic 'sentry-box' affair and have grown our crops from seed or with bought plants for almost ten years now. No allotment - just an eight by ten metre back garden which has about a third devoted to raised beds and borders for cultivation. We put in a few flowers for the first time this year... just for some extra colour after four decades of marriage!

Our 2016 tomatoes were all grown along a west facing fence - ten plants in ten rough clay drainage cylinders which were at the bottom of the garden when we moved in forty years ago. They make things easier for dedicated watering and feeding and the roots have plenty of chance to establish before they reach the earth below. I'll have to exert a little more control next year. Growth was so rampant that it was difficult to keep up with the pinching out and nipping off to keep things from going 'Triffid'. Sweet peas, fennel, French beans and runner beans completed the jungle on view here.

Here are the varieties we grew this year. That one 'Big Boy' is the first to ripen on the vine. Experience suggests we might have to pick subsequent fruits for ripening indoors before attack from all sorts of things, including baby snails and slugs which rasp out little holes.

From top left, clockwise:Supersweet (cherry), Moneymaker, Golden Sunrise, Black Cherry, Sun Baby (yellow cherry), Big Boy, Tumbling Tom Yellow (cherry), Roma (plum) — From top left, clockwise:
Supersweet (cherry), Moneymaker, Golden Sunrise, Black Cherry, Sun Baby (yellow cherry), Big Boy, Tumbling Tom Yellow (cherry), Roma (plum)

Tomato sauces have already been made and green tomato chutney beckons, made following my favourite recipe.

With such lovely ingredients inspiration is never far away but after a visit to Le Manoir aux Quat'Saisons my most pressing task is to reveal the essence of tomato and use it for what must be one of the more simple but most exquisite dishes I have enjoyed for some time. If you or I make Summer Vegetable Risotto to just half the standard which was served to me last week we will be transported to a version of heaven which is not described in any religious writings. Those online recipes give you enough information to work through but Monsieur Blanc's 'Kitchen Secrets' offers deeper understanding of the methods and the way to achieve perfection. I already have the book and that risotto recipe is on page 183... Woo Hoo!

None of the recipe books or online offerings show the refined presentation which came from Le Manoir's kitchen but the flavours alone are the essential and wonderful starting point for this one.

First things first, though. Mrs Cheoff has already made her rather stupendous tomato soup from a batch of our plum tomatoes. A hint of smoked bacon and a lot of basil. It's not the only reason I love her for all eternity... but it does add another layer to the cement which binds us together - tomato yumtious!

Of course you might find splendid people who can supply you with fine tomatoes but please consider finding space for at least a couple of plants of your own. If things go well and you discover even mildly green fingers the delights of the tomato are yours for the picking.

All because you did something before that Thursday in 2017.

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tags / #101TTDBNT, tomatoes, grow your own, gardening, Belmond Le Manoir, tomato essence, Le Manoir aux Quat'Saisons, essence of tomato, Raymond Blanc