Gabriel Pryce’s best tomatoes on focaccia
My head chef, Spasia Dinkovski, and I were able to get the most amazing, very small, box of the best tomatoes one day at our sandwich shop, Bodega Rita’s. When tomatoes that good come along, you need to let them take centre stage. They need minimal support – but the most delicious bread helps. (Also, don’t keep tomatoes in the fridge!) There are a few bits of cooking involved here but everything must be at room temperature when building the sandwich.
Serves 2-4
garlic 1 head
olive oil 2 tbsp
yellow bell peppers 2
mayonnaise 250g (we use Hellman’s)
salt and pepper
lemon 1, juiced and very finely zested
tomatoes 500g, the best available
vegetable oil 2 tbsp
capers 2 tbsp
focaccia 25cm x 25cm hunk of the best you can find of focaccia from (preferably from the Dusty Knuckle bakery in east London)
Preheat the oven to 180C/gas mark 4. Liberally drizzle the head of garlic with olive oil, wrap in tin foil and bake for 25 minutes until the flesh of the garlic is tender and golden brown, and you can squeeze the cloves from their skins with ease.
Place the peppers under a hot grill, turning every few minutes until the skins blister and blacken and the flesh starts to yield. Transfer to a bowl and cover with clingfilm to allow the peppers to steam and the skins to loosen. Peel and discard the skins and seeds, place the peppers in a food processor and blitz until smooth. Allow to cool, and mix with the mayonnaise, season with salt and pepper and the juice of half the lemon.
Slice the tomatoes into 1.5cm slices, season with salt and pepper and set aside on a plate.
Get a frying pan raging hot and add the vegetable oil. Quickly fry the capers until crisp. Transfer to a kitchen-paper lined plate to absorb some of the oil.
Slice the focaccia horizontally through the centre to open it up ready to be built into 1 large sandwich. Spread the base with the yellow pepper mayonnaise. Place a layer of the thick-cut tomatoes (retaining any juice that has seeped onto the plate while the tomatoes have been marinating in their seasoning) and dress with the crispy fried capers and the very finely grated zest of the lemon.
Press the top piece of focaccia into the tomato juices left on the plate and then smear with the confit garlic.
Place the top piece of focaccia onto the giant sandwich and cut into smaller sandwiches: 2 for big eaters, or 4 for a more reasonable lunch with a mustardy salad.
Gabriel Pryce is co-owner of Bodega Rita’s, London N1C
Marcella Hazan’s tomato sauce with onion and butter, and gnocchi
This is the simplest of all sauces to make, and none has a purer, more irresistibly sweet tomato taste. This is an unsurpassed sauce for potato gnocchi, but it is also delicious with factory pasta in such shapes as spaghetti, penne and rigatoni.
The choice of potato for gnocchi is critical. Neither a baking potato nor any kind of new potato is suitable. The first is too mealy and the second too moist, and if you use either your gnocchi are likely to collapse while cooking. The only reliable potato for gnocchi is a boiling, ‘old’ potato. In Britain, desirée potatoes are the best for making gnocchi without eggs. If you want to use king edwards, you will find it easier if you mix an egg in with the purée and the flour; white potatoes do not make good gnocchi.
Serves 6
fresh, ripe tomatoes 900g, or 500g tinned imported Italian plum tomatoes, cut up with their juice
butter 75g
onion 1 medium, peeled and cut in half
salt
parmigiano-reggiano freshly grated, for the table
For the gnocchi
boiling potatoes 675g
plain, unbleached flour 170g
If you are using fresh tomatoes, you can prepare them by blanching them or using a food mill. The blanching method can lead to a meatier, more rustic consistency. The food mill method produces a silkier, smoother sauce. To blanch, plunge the tomatoes in boiling water for a minute or less. Drain them and, as soon as they are cool enough to handle, skin them, and cut them up into coarse pieces. For the food mill method, wash the tomatoes in cold water, cut them in half lengthwise, and put them in a covered saucepan. Turn the heat to medium and cook for 10 minutes. Set a food mill fitted with the disc with the largest holes over a bowl. Transfer the tomatoes with any of their juices to the mill and puree.
Put either the prepared, fresh tomatoes or the tinned ones into a saucepan, add the butter, onion and salt, and cook uncovered at a very slow but steady simmer for 45 minutes, or until the fat floats free from the tomatoes. Stir from time to time, mashing any large piece of tomato in the pan with the back of a wooden spoon. Taste and correct for salt. Discard the onion before tossing the sauce with pasta.
The sauce may be frozen when done, after discarding the onion.
For the gnocchi, put the potatoes with their skins on in a pot of abundant water and bring to the boil. Cook until tender. Avoid testing them too often by puncturing with a fork because they may become waterlogged. When done, drain them and pull off their skins while hot. Puree them through a food mill and on to a work surface while they are still warm.
Add most of the flour to the pureed potatoes and knead into a smooth mixture. Some potatoes absorb less flour than others, so it is best not to add all the flour until you know exactly how much they will take. Stop adding flour when the mixture has become soft and smooth, but is still slightly sticky.
Dust the work surface lightly with flour. Divide the potato and flour mass into 2 or more parts and shape each of them into a sausage-like roll about 2.5cm thick. Slice the rolls into pieces 2cm long. While working with gnocchi, dust your hands and the work surface repeatedly with flour.
You must now shape the gnocchi so that they will cook evenly and hold a sauce successfully. Take a dinner fork with long, slim tines, rounded if possible. Working over a counter, hold the fork more or less parallel to the counter and with the concave side facing you.
With the index finger of your other hand, hold one of the cut pieces against the inside curve of the fork, just below the tips of the prongs. At the same time that you are pressing the piece against the prongs, flip it away from the tips and in the direction of the fork’s handle. The motion of the finger is flipping, not dragging. As the piece rolls away from the prongs, let it drop to the counter. If you are doing it correctly, it will have ridges on one side formed by the tines and a depression on the other formed by your fingertip. When gnocchi are shaped in this manner, the middle section is thinner and becomes more tender in cooking, while the ridges become grooves for sauce to cling to.
To cook the gnocchi bring 4-5 litres of water to a boil and salt. Before putting in the whole first batch, drop in just 2 or 3 gnocchi. Ten seconds after they have floated to the surface, retrieve them and taste them. If the flavour is too floury, you must add 2 or 3 seconds to the cooking time, while if they are nearly dissolved, you must subtract 2 or 3 seconds. Drop in the first full batch of gnocchi, about 2 dozen. In a short time they will float to the surface. Let them cook the 10 seconds, or more, or less, that you have determined they need, then retrieve them with a large slotted spoon and transfer to a warm serving platter. Spread over them some of the sauce you are using and a light sprinkling of grated parmesan. Drop more gnocchi in the pot and repeat the whole operation. When all the gnocchi are done, pour the rest of the sauce over them and more grated parmesan, turn them rapidly to coat them well and serve at once.
From The Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking by Marcella Hazan (Boxtree, £30)
Jessica B Harris’s fried green tomatoes
In the United States, while we have multiple ways of preparing tomatoes, our favourite requires the unripe fruit. Fried green tomatoes are not just an invention of the author Fannie Flagg, they’re a southern speciality enjoyed by all. At Upperline restaurant in New Orleans they are used as the base for a rich duck étouffée, and they can add a new fillip to a bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich. For most people, though, they’re just fine with bacon or sausage.
Serves 4
large green tomatoes 4
plain flour 35g
yellow cornmeal 2 tbsp
salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
bacon drippings for frying, or canola oil
Wash the tomatoes and cut them into thick slices. Mix the flour, cornmeal, salt and pepper in a small brown paper bag. Heat the bacon drippings in a large heavy frying pan. Place the tomato slices in the bag and shake gently until they are coated with the flour and cornmeal mixture.
Place the tomato slices in the frying pan and fry them a few at a time, turning them often so that they do not stick and are browned on both sides. Drain the slices on paper towels, adjust seasonings and serve hot.
Jessica B Harris is a culinary historian, cookbook author and patron of the Oxford Cultural Collective
Elizabeth David’s tomatoes provençales
Cut large ripe tomatoes in half. With a small sharp knife make several incisions crosswise in the pulp of the tomatoes, and in these rub salt, pepper and crushed garlic. Chop finely a good handful of parsley and spread each half tomato with it, pressing it well in.
Pour a few drops of olive oil on each and cook under the grill for preference, or in a hot oven. To be quite perfect, tomatoes provençales should be slightly blackened on the cut surface.
From A Book of Mediterranean Food by Elizabeth David (Penguin Books, £9.99)
Anna Jones’s wedding-worthy tomato tarte tatin
I don’t think I could be more fond of a recipe. This is a simplified version of the tart we ate at our wedding; a perfect summer offering. Roasting the tomatoes takes a few hours but requires very little effort, so don’t be put off. The tart can also be assembled ahead of time. Tomatoes are the star of the show here, so buy beautiful, different colours and shapes if you can. A special mention to Sarah and Stuart from Bubble and Squeak Food; nothing I make will ever taste as sweet.
Serves 4-6
good, ripe tomatoes 1kg
olive oil
red onions 3, freshly sliced
red wine vinegar 1 tbsp
brown sugar or runny honey 1 tsp
thyme or oregano a small bunch
butter 25g, for greasing
flour for dusting
all-butter puff pastry 1 x 375g pack
organic egg 1, beaten
baby capers 50g, drained and dried on kitchen paper
Preheat your oven to 120C/gas mark 2. Cut the tomatoes in half and put them cut-side up on a baking tray with a little salt and pepper, and a couple of tablespoons of olive oil. Put them in the oven for 3-4 hours to slowly roast and sweeten. You may need to take some of the smaller tomatoes out a bit earlier, so keep an eye on them. Once cooked, remove and allow to cool a little. (Sometimes I find it easier to cook the tomatoes overnight: I roast them at 120C/gas mark 2 for 1 hour, then turn off the oven and leave them until the morning.)
Next, make the caramelised onions. Heat a tablespoon of olive oil on a medium heat and add the sliced onions. Cook for 10 minutes to sweeten and soften before adding the vinegar, sugar, the leaves from a few sprigs of the thyme or oregano (saving the rest for later) and a good pinch of salt and pepper. Cook on a low heat for 30-40 minutes until really soft and sticky.
Butter a cast-iron or heavy ovenproof frying pan (about 24cm in diameter) – a well-buttered pan will mean the tart comes out easily. Lay the tomatoes cut-side down in a kind of mosaic, fitting them all together; don’t worry if there is a little bit of overlap. Once they are all squeezed in, scatter the onions over the top.
Lightly dust a work surface with flour and roll out the pastry until it’s about 1cm thick, then cut out a circle just bigger than your pan. Lay it over the onion mixture and tuck the sides around the onion inside the pan. You can stop here and put the tart into the fridge if you like.
Once you are ready to cook, preheat the oven to 220C/gas mark 7. Brush the pastry with a little of the beaten egg and put it into the oven for 25-30 minutes, until golden all over and bubbling around the edges.
While the tart is cooking, heat a few tablespoons of olive oil in a frying pan. Have a plate lined with some kitchen paper and a slotted spoon to hand. Once the oil is good and hot, add the capers. They will bloom into little flowers and crisp in just 30 seconds or so. Lift them out and quickly drain them on kitchen paper.
Once the tart is ready, take it out of the oven and allow it to sit for 5 minutes before running a knife around the edge and carefully turning it out on to a plate. Scatter the capers over the tart before serving.
From The Modern Cook’s Year by Anna Jones (Fourth Estate, £26)
Bonus cocktail!
Jeremy Lee’s bloody mary
What would life be without this perfectly brilliant buck-u-up of a drink? We use the particularly nice Pago tomato juice at Quo Vadis, but if you can’t find it, I often use Big Tom. Worth considering is the rather natty way they have in New Orleans of serving wild and wonderful pickled vegetables atop the bloody mary, such as okra and green beans.
Serve 5-6
vodka 300ml (I use Stolichnaya)
lemon juice 150ml, just squeezed
tomato juice 1 litre
worcestershire sauce 20ml
Tabasco 18 splashes
celery salt 2 heaped tsp
freshly ground black pepper 1 tsp
celery stalks, lemon slices and ice to serve
Pour all ingredients into a large jug, add ice and stir. Finish with slices of lemon and celery stalks and pour over more ice into your chilled tall glasses.
Jeremy Lee is chef-proprietor at Quo Vadis, London W1
