Category: Recipes | Post by: Andrea Wong
Firstly I'd like to apologise for my silence over the past month or so. I feel terrible, so guilty for not blogging, cooking nor eating like I should. Life being what it is, sometimes there are periods where it feels like you're being stretched every which-way. And then Christchurch happened. And then Japan. I found that my flame for thinking about food had been somewhat dampened. But it didn't last forever. Like for example, the discovery of a fig tree which got me all excited (this will be the subject of my next blog post).
And of course the food and hospitality industry doesn't rest, so there's been a plethora of new things to nibble, sip and see.
While I was swimming in a pool of renovations, sadness from the earthquakes, work and life in general, my garden continued to grow with seemingly insensitive disregard to my emotions. It's probably just as well though, because a sad garden is not a healthy one and I enjoy my time pottering around tending to my plants.
I must say that I've been impressed with the harvesting of my wee garden so far with it producing well over 20kg of veges out of about 3m square since the beginning of the year! And as per usual, my summer garden is dominated by tomatoes. I tried out some heirloom tomatoes, black krim, ordinary ones, romas and some self seeded cherry tomatoes from years gone by.
A trip to my garden patch can yield anything from a wee cherry tomato - which doesn't make it back inside, but instead gets happily eaten in the garden - to my biggest tomato, a whopping 800g yellow beauty. What a shame I forgot to photograph it! Sitting on the kitchen bench, it was mistaken for a small pumpkin.
The most prolific type of tomato has been the black krim. Not black as such, but a beautiful deep red colour, it enriches the colour of anything it's made with.
A while ago, a Twitter mate and culinary student, James Raukete, sent me a recipe for tomato chilli jam. I've had it on file all this time and have finally made it, much to Mr H's delight. I've tweaked the recipe and tiny bit and renamed it a sauce - not a jam - as it doesn't set. Maybe next time I'll try and make it with jam setting sugar (sugar with pectin in it) because I love the idea of having it thick and jelly-like and spreading it on a cracker and topping it with a wedge of ripe camembert.
But made as it is below, it gets scooped onto anything that Mr H deems suitable (ie almost anything savoury!). It's wonderful to accompany things like spring rolls, hot chips, noodles, frittatas, sausages... you get the idea.
Double the recipe and you'll probably get enough for a jar to eat now and another for later.
Tomato chilli sauce
Adapted from James Raukete's recipe
Makes about 300ml
Ingredients
500g very ripe tomatoes, washed
2 red chillies
4 cloves garlic, peeled
2 cm root ginger, peeled and chopped
30 ml fish sauce
300g sugar
100 ml red wine vinegar
Directions
- Blend half the tomatoes, the chilies, garlic, ginger and the fish sauce to a fine puree in a blender
- Dice the other half of the tomatoes and set aside
- Put the puree and the sugar and the vinegar in a large pot and bring to the boil slowly, stirring all the time
- When it reaches the boil, turn to a gentle simmer and add the diced tomatoes
- Skim off the foam and cook gently for 1 hour so it will thicken, stirring every 5 minutes. The wider the pot, the quicker the sauce will thicken
- Check its thickness by putting a teaspoon full onto a saucer and allow it to cool. It should be the consistency of sweet chilli sauce
- When it is done, pour into warmed glass jars and allow cooling to room temperature before storing in the fridge.
This will keep for ages. It'll probably be eaten before it goes off!
