Tomato soup and sauce

One day I intend to become an expert tomato farmer, because the processing of tomatoes into sauces and soups is probably one of the most satisfying things I do in the kitchen. I have written about this method for making sauce for pizza, however I now share with you my favourite tomato sauce recipe, suitable for soups, pizza, pasta, or just a great base for whatever else you can think of. This will make 2 X 750ml containers of soup (enough for 2 people in each container) and 2 X 275g of sauce (enough for a large pizza or pasta dish for 2).

Ingredients
300g cherry tomatoes
700g baby plum tomatoes
2 large beef tomatoes
2kg salad tomatoes
2 sweet red peppers
Olive oil
Garlic salt
Black pepper
Mixed herbs

I buy tomatoes a week before I use them and let them ripen and develop flavour on my windowsill. It really does make a hell of a difference. A fresh supermarket bought tomato can last a couple of weeks on a sunny windowsill before its time to worry about rotting.

To start with I put all my cherry and baby plum tomatoes on to simmer in a good glug of olive oil.

The beef tomatoes I chop into chunky slices and the salad tomatoes I cut into quarters. These are spread on a baking tray and seasoned with olive oil, garlic salt, black pepper and some mixed herbs.

The sweet red peppers don't just add an amazing flavour to this, they also colour it. Tomato sauce is orange, by adding the peppers it becomes a richer bright red colour. They're absolutely essential to this sauce. I slice them open down one side and scoop out all the seeds before stuffing them with some of the cherry and plum tomatoes from the hob.

The tomatoes and peppers all go in the oven at 170degC for 40mins, just until they begin to char slightly. Meanwhile the cherry and plum tomatoes should be well softened and will pop and break up easily when stirred. Take them off the heat and blend them, before straining them through a sieve, pushing it all through with the back of a spoon until all you have left is seeds and skins in the sieve. Keep this sauce aside for now.

When your roasting tomatoes and peppers are singed and ready, take them out the oven and drain off all the juice into tall glasses, reserve this oily juice.

As the juice cools the oil will rise to the top, skim this off and keep it. This oil will have loads of tomato flavour, I like to add it to fresh pop corn.

Again blend your tomatoes and peppers before pushing the mixture through a sieve and straight into a large pot.

That's all the hard work done! Now simply add to the pot the juice in the glasses and the sauce from the cherry and plum tomatoes. Stir it all together and bring it up to a simmer. At this point you have a big batch of tomato soup.

About half the mixture I remove into pour and store bags, cool and freeze as soup.

The rest I leave to gently simmer and reduce. As it simmers a scum will collect on the surface. Swoop in with a clean spoon every now and then and remove this before giving it all a bit of a stir. As the sauce gets lower it will spit violently so a loose covering with a spit guard or a towel might be a good idea. The sauce is at the right consistency when you can draw a line to the bottom of the pot in it. At this point half fill 2 jars with sauce. Whilst you do this the sauce is still reducing and will caramelise on the base slightly, which is perfect. Make sure you don't let it burn too much and keep stirring it in. Fill up the jars with the remaining sauce and you're done.

If you're a canning pro then this is the perfect time to use those skills. Personally I just freeze them.

Roasted garlic purée

While I had the oven going one day I decided to make some of this. Now I always keep a jar in the fridge. It's great for quick cooking, for those times when you can't be bothered to mince a garlic clove or mess about with the crusher.

Simply shove a whole head of garlic in its skin in the oven. I've used an elephant garlic here, less hassle peeling small garlic cloves later.

Once done peel the garlic, which will now be soft and sticky, and press it through a sieve with the back of a table spoon.

The jar will keep for a couple of weeks in the fridge.

I use half a teaspoon occasionally in sauces, or to add to rubs for meat, or in mashed potato. It's extremely handy to have ready to use.

Beetroot Nuggets with Orange Dipping Sauce

On Sunday I made carrot and beetroot cake again and it reminded me how much I love beetroot, so I decided to get creative last night with some of the leftover beets.

I also made this sesame loaf, basically it's a standard white bread made with sesame oil and topped with sesame seeds.

I took a slice of the bread and used a blender to make it into crumbs which I toasted in the oven at 150degC with a few more sesame seeds for good measure. Then I dug out the rest of the ingredients for making the nuggets.

I peeled and chopped the beetroot into quarters and put it on to boil whilst I set about designing a dipping sauce.

I had in mind a sort of sweet and sour type thing, but a bit fruitier than the usual Chinese takeaway style ones. I figured orange would be the way forward, with a bit of ginger thrown in for some kick.

After much faffing about the final list of ingredients to make my sauce was:
The juice (including bits) of 2 Oranges
1tsp Orange Zest
1 tsp grated Ginger
3 tsp Mirin (optional)
1 tbsp Black Rice Vinegar
2 tsp Caster Sugar
and I did add a dash of lemon juice but in hindsight I think it made the sauce a little too sharp and could probably be cut out.

I put it on to reduce next to the beetroot which by now was about ready to go, as in I could easily stab through it with a fork.

I drained the beets and let them rest until cool enough to handle. Then I rolled them in plain flour seasoned with salt and pepper, dipped them in beaten egg and rolled them around in the toasted breadcrumbs so they were evenly coated. I baked them at 190degC until the breadcrumbs had turned crisp and golden brown.

My sauce reduced down to a syrupy consistency and turned out great! I was actually pretty impressed. The beetroot nuggets came out well too - tender and full of beetroot flavour but with a good savoury note from the sesame and a nice crunch from the breadcrumbs.

Together they both came through in equal amounts and complimented each other well.

It was a fun experiment for me, I haven't gotten creative like that for a while. I'm glad I did though as that could turn out to be a great veggie starter one day if I ever need one.

Fried Squid in Sichuan Sauce

I thought I'd finish off my little 5 day Chinese meal event with something a bit special. So I managed to hunt down a recipe that I was able to adapt slightly to use a bit of everything I've been posting about for the past week. Obviously I'm biased, but I think the Sichuan sauce may just be the tastiest sauce I have ever made.

My first job was to get to work on these 2 beautiful squid that my local fishmonger went to the trouble of obtaining specially for me, fresh off the boats at Newhaven Harbour and caught somewhere out in the English Channel.

Here's how to prepare them:

The first cut needs to be across and just under the eye. This chops off the tentacles and you'll be able to easily pop out the beak once separated. Trim the 2 long tentacles to the same length as the rest.

Next pinch the 2 fins together. You can see under the fin where the skin is very thin and rolls away easily.

Once you get your fingers under the skin here both fins and the skin easily all pull away from the rest of the squid in one piece.

Now the messy bit. Gently tug the head away from the body. The insides should follow in one long string.

Finally, pull out the quill.

You may need to go back in and pull out any left over insides this failed to emerge with the head. But when you're done give everything a thorough wash out under the cold tap and you'll be left with neatly prepared and ready to use squid.

Ingredients

2 tbsp Ketchup (see blog post from 06/02/2012 for recipe)

2 tbsp Black Bean Sauce (see blog post from 03/04/2012 for recipe)

2 tbsp Hoisin Sauce (see blog post from 05/04/2012 for recipe)

1 tbsp Plum Sauce (see blog post from 04/03/2012 for recipe)

2 tsp Chilli Paste (see blog post from 31/03/2012 for recipe)

2 tbsp Dark Soy Sauce

2 tbsp Dry Sherry

150ml Chicken Stock

2 tsp Chinese Black Vinegar

2 cloves Garlic

5cm of Fresh Ginger

2 tbsp Groundnut Oil

2 tsp Sesame Oil

I finely grated the garlic and ginger and put them to one side whilst I combined everything else apart from the 2 oils and the chicken stock in a bowl.

Then I heated the groundnut oil in a pan and fried the ginger and garlic for 1 minute...

...before adding the stock and the bowl mixture and leaving to simmer.

Back to my squid... I sliced it up into rings and chopped the tentacles up into twos.

Then coated it in plain flour...

...before frying in batches in some very hot groundnut oil, removing with a slotted spoon into a bowl lined with kitchen towel.

Here's the important bit about cooking squid - Squid goes very chewy and un-appetising if it is cooked for more than 3 minutes, unless you cook it for 0ver 20 minutes which will be long enough to break the proteins back down and tenderise the meat again. So as a rule cook squid for 2 minutes or 25 minutes and you'll be guaranteed soft tasty squid. 2 minutes is plenty of time to crisp up the flour to a golden brown and cook the squid in this recipe.

The fried squid was absolutely delicious on its own. It truly is unbeatable when prepared fresh like this. However, I managed to resist eating all of it then and there and instead poured over my Sichuan sauce.

I then proceeded to sit in my own little private heaven for about 20 minutes. This truly was worth every second of time and every ounce of effort I put into making this dish.

Peking Duck with Hoisin Sauce

Hoisin sauce never tasted this good until I made it. Perhaps I just like it a little extra garlicy, also I don’t very often cook with molasses. Having made a few Chinese recipes now I’ll be using them a lot more. This is supposed to be made with black bean paste. That’s not black bean sauce, black bean paste is a paste made from fermented mung beans. I couldn’t find the stuff anywhere even though I went to some trouble looking. As it turned out miso paste, which is far more readily available, made an excellent substitute.

Ingredients
1 Red Chili
2 cloves Garlic
75ml Dark Soy Sauce
3 tbsp Molasses
4 tsp Sesame Oil
4 tsp Rice Wine Vinegar
100g Miso Paste

Crush the garlic and the chilli into a paste. Use a pestle and mortar for this. I have 2 but they’re living in boxes somewhere at the moment whilst we move so I had to try and make a paste using the back of a spoon in a bowl. There really is a reason that even with all the high tech gadgets we have in the kitchen today we still smash things between 2 stones, there’s nothing does the job quite as well.

Add the vinegar and the oil and mix into chilli and garlic, then add the miso bit by bit to mix it all up into a smooth paste.

Next add the soy sauce, again bit by bit to make a smooth sauce.

And finally carefully heat the molasses to make them pour easier and add them to make a velvety smooth and thick sauce. I say carefully heat them, if you're just going to chuck them in the microwave for a bit then be ready to clean hot sticky molasses off the inside of your microwave.

This makes the perfect dipping sauce, it’s one of the most moreish things I’ve made!

Or...

Ingredients
4 tbsp Hoisin Sauce
1 tbsp Molasses
1 tbsp Runny Honey
1 tbsp Light Soy Sauce
1 1/2 cm Fresh Ginger
1 tbsp Mirin
1/2 tsp Chinese 5 Spice

And then this duck, that I’ve prepared by removing the neck flap and blanching the skin by pouring boiling water straight from the kettle all over, then gently patting dry with paper towels.

I minced the ginger and combined all the ingredients together in a saucepan and brought to the boil, then reduced for about 2 minutes to make Peking Sauce. I brushed the duck all over, inside and out, only using half of the sauce.

Then roasted at 200degC for 45 minutes over a rack to allow the fat to drain away, re-glazed again with the remaining sauce and roasted for a further 45 minutes.

I served it with the remainder the hoisin sauce to dip the duck in at the table. Of course you could always serve this with the classic pancakes and some sliced cucumber and spring onions.

Beef in Black Bean Sauce

Another takeaway classic. The black turtle beans I used for this had a great flavour of their own which I felt I’d missed out on a bit until I made my own sauce. In hindsight they could have done with some overnight soaking in water, but that was simply remedied by adding more water and reducing the sauce again occasionally to cook them for longer and leaving the finished sauce in a container for about 10 hours before I used it in the dish.

Ingredients
75g Black Beans
2.5cm chunk of Fresh Ginger
2 cloves Garlic
1 tbsp Groundnut Oil
2 tbsp Sesame Oil
1 tbsp Mirin
150 ml Chicken Stock
3 tbsp Dark Soy Sauce
1 tsp Sugar
1 tsp Cornflour

For starters the beans need to be roughly chopped (that’s a food processor job), the garlic crushed and the ginger minced. Then heat the groundnut and sesame oil together in a pan and throw them in to fry on a high heat for about a minute.

Then add the rest of the ingredients minus the cornflour and cook for 2 or 3 minutes, or until the beans are tender.

Finally mix the cornflour with about a tiny bit of water and add it to thicken the sauce. That’s the sauce done!

I think there are few meats better suited to black bean sauce than beef. So I cut some steak up into strips and fried it in a little groundnut oil just to seal it before adding some green peppers and mushrooms.

Then in goes the sauce and I left everything to simmer gently whilst I prepared the rest of the meal.

I served it up with some plain rice to soak up the sauce and some steamed broccoli.

Delicious way to make use of these tasty beans.