River Cottage Everyday-Tomatoes.

A mistake I made last year was not planning ahead for what to do with all those lovely, ripe, home grown tomatoes. This came from not wanting to have expectations above my growing capabilities. I didn’t want to plan for a feast, only to end up with a few sandwich rounds.

Now the tomatoes are long gone, it’s cold and dark and I’ve turned to cookery books for my tomato fix. So I thought rather than keep my virtual face stuffing to myself I’d share it here so we’re all primed and ready with ideas for next year.

Today’s source is River Cottage Everyday by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall.

Described in the introduction as :

•  the kind of food I eat at home every day
•  cooking simple and delicious food from the best seasonal ingredients

So far I’ve rustled up the Tomato, Chipolata and New Potato Lunchbox and adapted the Fried Halloumi Salad. What else is in River Cottage Everyday for the tomato centric ?

11 dishes are indexed under tomato. 2 for tinned, the rest fresh. I’m going fresh only.

I’m going to start with fish. I don’t tend to think fish and tomato. Anchovies on pizza – yes. But otherwise no.

So choose a fish – Gurnard, Grey Mullet, Bream, Pollack, Plaice, Megrim or Lemon Sole and create a breaded fillet to serve with tomato salsa –tomatoes, red onion, lemon juice, oil, sugar, parsley.

Or just simply fry the fillet and serve with a roasted tomato sauce. I roasted a lot of tomatoes this summer and made a lot of sauce. But I don’t remember making a roasted tomato sauce. It looks finger dipping good .

Tomatoes roasted at 180C for 1 hour with garlic and thyme, pushed through a sieve, skin and seeds discarded and then the remaining puree mixed with brown sugar, bay leaf, white wine vinegar and mace and heated.

I’ve not eaten rabbit but here it is in Rabbit stew with tomato.Perhaps I’ll try the French beans with garlicky tomatoes first. Both recipes call for skinned, deseeded, roughly chopped tomatoes but only one states to blanch the tomatoes first. I think in this context blanching refers to plunging them into boiling water to make the skinning process easier so I’m sure could be used in both.

I love the sound (literally) of Tabula Kisir. Said out loud, it rolls deliciously round the mouth. Described as ‘Turkish, herby, spicy, bulghur wheat’.

The salad is bulghur wheat, walnuts, tomato, spring onion, parsley, mint and dill. The dressing gets its kicks from tomato puree, dried chilli flakes, cumin and paprika.

Mulled over:  salsa and salad – the difference? Conclusion – the size the tomatoes are chopped to; fine for salsa, larger for salad plus salsa needs an edge which gets provided by the inclusion of shallot/spring onion.

And then simple but essential. The tomato and bread combination. Here in the form of Tomato Toast. In Barcelona: ‘ Pa amb tomaquet’ . Toasted bread with all the juicy tomato, bar the skin, squished down into it, slicked with a little olive oil and salt.

So when everyday is a summer’s day I’ll be trying some of the above. And thinking ahead to what I’ll be cooking reminds me that next year I want to experiment with growing ‘kitchen companions’ for my tomatoes, especially herbs.