A love affair with tomatoes

If only wedding anniversaries were marked with foodstuffs, for me that would make the annual purchase of a fitting gift so much easier. This year was the year of the Tomato. Our 5th wedding anniversary saw the end to my quest for the near perfect dish, a Provencal Tarte fines aux Tomates with homemade Aioli. Tigerella tomatoes have only ever featured on a faded poster in my kitchen, but I had the pleasure of choosing them from a variety of outdoor grown organic tomatoes at the market. They were labelled Tomates Couleurs, but in fact their true name gives them away in appearance. They are striped like a tiger. I chose them for their texture and taste as they felt and tasted on the day, and it was what you expect of a tomato but rarely get. Firm and sweet with a tang. I sliced a kilo and laid them onto puff pastry spread with a dense mixture of mascarpone, parmesan and basil before baking them slowly but surely in the oven until they dried out. My only mistake was that i didn't use enough of them, sliced to perfection, to give a more refined tarte. Here's to 5 years Monsieur McKay, who followed the tarte fines with a spectacularly executed dish of roasted poussin on sesame crepes topped with a sauce of green grapes.


tartes fines aux tomates
serves 4

230g puff pastry rolled to 30 cm
150g mascarpone
50g grated parmesan
a bunch of freshly torn basil
1kg tomatoes

• roll the pastry to 30cm and place on a baking sheet
• mix the cheeses and basil and season before spreading onto the inner 20cm circle of the pastry
• slice the tomatoes to 5mm and lay them in ever decreasing circles from the outside edge of the pastry inwards, and upwards over the cheese mixture. Use the top and bottom slices to prop up each circle as you reach the centre.
• bake at 200 degrees C for 25 minutes in a preheated oven, and then for a further 45 minutes at 170 degrees C.

aioli
serves 4

2 egg yolks
1 tspn water
1 tspn dijon mustard
350ml olive oil (or half the amount of olive to half vegetable oil)
3 crushed cloves of garlic

• put the egg yolks into a basin and add the water and mustard
• start whisking a drizzle of olive oil until incorporated ensuring it doesn't split. add the oil in small amounts whisking continuously until the mixture becomes firm.
  
• mix in the crushed garlic and season to taste
  

tuscan bread salad
serves 4

1/2 stale baguette cubed
1/2 kilo tomatoes
1 red onion
1/2 cucumber
2 tbspns red wine vinegar
4 tbspns olive oil
oregano

• toast the baguette in olive oil in the oven and leave to cool
• chop the tomatoes, onion and cucumber and mascerate in the red wine vinegar and olive oil
• just before serving toss the vegetable mixure into the toasted bread and add the oregano and season

serve with breadcrumbed veal or pork escalope

Ceps, slugs and all

Why is it sometimes such a challenge to reproduce something so impossibly simple? The only place in the world where I would choose an omelette from a menu is Relais d'Aydie, a popular hostelry in a hamlet bearing the same name (i never thought it would be possible to write omelette and hamlet in the same sentence). It's Piece de Resistance is an Omelette aux Cepes. I will never be able to compete with their version but when Jean Claude, our neighbour farmer, delivered a bagful of freshly picked ceps, slugs and all, I cleaned them of their gunge with a brush and tossed them into a pan of sizzling garlicky butter, before adding half a dozen free range eggs. The melange was delicious. Thank you, Jean Claude. The ceps on arrival were large and slippery, and not as delicious to look at in a plastic bag as they are in situe, but they can be transformed in minutes into something divine. Accompanying the ceps was a huge, dense marrow. Marrow memories are usually ghastly. Mine involve mushy, watery slush, baked in the oven with a mince meat filling. I owe my gratitude to a Moro recipe of inch thick half moons of marrow fried in butter and olive oil, served with a garlic, cumin, tahini and yoghurt sauce dribbled on top.

Green is Life

From early summer landscapes and spring leaves to stormy Atlantic squalls, I am drawn to shades of green. It seems to represent life and movement, growth and renewal. Having experienced the verdant coastline of the Cinque Terre in Liguria on the Italian Riviera, home to olive orchards and wine groves which plunge dramatically towards the sea on rocky terraces, the dark green Pesto alla Genovese originating from this region is a reflection of great simple food being produced from very few indigenous ingredients. As we are more likely to have watercress in our fridge, Graham's watercress pesto is a good alternative to the traditional Italian recipe.



watercress pesto
4-6 servings

75g (1/2 bag) of watercress
1 clove of garlic
50g of pine nuts (lightly toasted)
50g grated Pecorino or Parmesan cheese
100ml extra virgin olive oil
freshly ground black pepper

• chop the watercress and garlic in a small food processor (don't go as far as to puree the ingredients)
• add the pine nuts then transfer the mixture to a bowl
• stir in the cheese and olive oil
• season to taste before stirring into freshly cooked pasta

Posh Pork and Beans

Baked beans with sausages from a tin are a guilty pleasure, tasting best cooked over a campfire in their original receptacle. Until a few years ago i took little or no interest in pulses, dried or otherwise, but they are such a versatile and palatable source of protein and roughage for little ones. As a lover of Cassoulet, brought steaming from the oven in a sturdy pot, it was easy to translate into a simpler version for younger palates.

posh pork and beans
6 - 8 servings

1 tbsp olive oil
1/2 onion (finely chopped)
1 clove garlic (crushed)
125g pork loin (diced)
2 small pork sausages (1cm slices)
1 tbsp tomato puree
1 tin of flageolet or haricot beans (drained and rinsed)
1/2 tspn soy sauce (optional)
150ml chicken stock
1 tbsp chopped thyme and rosemary
2 tbsp toasted breadcrumbs

• heat the olive oil in a heavy based pan and lightly fry the onion and garlic.
  
• add the chopped pork loin and sliced sausage and allow to colour gently
• stir in the tomato puree, flageolet beans, soy, chicken stock and herbs.
• place a lid on the pan and cook gently for 20 minutes until the sauce resembles a thick gravy.
  
• serve sprinkled with the breadcrumbs on top to give a crunch.
  

Seeded Muffins

The essence of summer is captured for me simply by a field of sunflowers, raising or bowing their heads in adoration of the sun. It seems only fair that the seeds are bursting with goodness. My children generally get on very well with food, but having encountered occasional blips in their relationship, i have been challenged with finding other ways of packing recipes with good stuff. They love cakes of any description but the bigger the better. So large, fluffy, seeded muffins seem to do the trick. I started with a cheese base, and gradually added a variety of vegetables and complementary seeds, good for anytime.



courgette and sunflower seed muffins
makes 12 large/24 small

225g self raising flour
1 tspn baking powder
1/2 tspn bicarbonate of soda
75 g strong cheddar (grated)
1 small or half a large courgette (grated)
30 g sunflower seeds
50g butter (melted)
1 egg
1 1/2 tspn wholegrain mustard or 1/2 tspn mustard powder
150ml semi skimmed milk

• preheat the oven to 200C/180C fan oven/gas mark 6
  
• sieve the flour, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda into a bowl, stir in the grated cheese, courgette and pumpkin seeds.
• mix the melted butter, egg, mustard and milk in a separate bowl,
  
• make a well in the centre of the dry mixture and stir in the wet ingredients.
• spoon into 12 large muffin cases or 24 smaller bun cases and bake for 20 minutes or 8-10 minutes respectively.
  

carrot and poppy seed
apple and pumpkin seed

Decapitation in Dieppe

There's always something exciting about foreign ports, perhaps it's the vague promise of finding a man with a barbeque selling fresh grilled sardines wrapped in newspaper. On a recent journey back from France, we stopped in Dieppe and with 6 hours to kill before our ferry departure, we had time to ogle enviously at the locals buying their freshly landed sole, turbot and scallops before heading to a portside restaurant along a busy strip for some lunch. Now my 2 year old Lily chose prawns, shell on prawns, with mayonnaise. She spent the next hour removing their heads and the remainder of the shell, with a look of deep concentration on her face, before popping each one into her mouth. Shell on prawns and mayonnaise are easy to find in the supermarket, but here's a recipe for prawn jambalaya which both my girls have eaten since 9 months old.



prawn jambalaya
6-8 servings

1 small onion (chopped)
1 clove of garlic
1/2 green pepper (diced)
long grain rice
chicken stock
6 cherry tomatoes
125g cocktail prawns
a handful of frozen peas
thyme
turmeric
sweet paprika
white and black pepper