Before I give more details, let me explain that my first ever restaurant
memory is from over 40 years ago, when I was roundabout 4 or 5 years
old, and, remember sitting at a restaurant on a seaside quay, looking
out over the harbour there, eating tomato soup.
In any case, a form of self-bought christmas present in the last couple
of weeks was one of those hand-held blender appliances - you can also
attach normal whisks onto it, etc., but, I specifically wanted the
blender functionality, and, one of the dishes planned to experiment
with, or try out was a form of tomato soup.
Either way, just now, I fried up a diced onion, using combination of bit
of extra virgin olive oil, along with a piece of butter, adding in
spices and herbs like paprika, origanum, garlic and a touch of dried
peri-peri, as well as a single chicken stock cube, and, when the onion
bits had softened, I diced in 6 largish tomatoes, just removing their
stem points, added in roundabout half a cup of dry red wine, and
roundabout a cup of water, and just let it all cook down, stirring it
every now and then.
Did also add in a bit of chutney, and some decent tomato sauce along the
way, since didn't have anything like tomato puree here, but, that was
more or less a spur of the moment choice.
When it all seemed to have cooked down to where I wanted it to -
tomatoes softened up, and starting to come apart, I let it coold down
slightly, to where it stopped simmering, and then used the hand-held
blender, on the slower of it's two speeds to work the whole mix down to
the texture I wanted, while keeping it in the original pot - not
completely smooth, if that makes sense, but, pretty much just a thick
liquid form, with a slightly grainy texture.
I then put it back on the stove, and brought it back up to simmering,
and cut up some chunks of grana padano hard cheese into it, and, lastly
mixed in one whole egg, just to thicken it up a bit.
Now, if I had some here, I might have preferred to try thicken it
slightly with a bit of corn starch, but, the egg actually also added a
bit of richness to the flavour, and, one other small touch would have
liked to add would have been freshly ground black pepper, right near the
end.
Either way, it's otherwise, pretty much what I was hoping for, with a
very rich, slightly tangy flavour, and, this experiment, 40 years later,
was pretty much a perfect result to my form of an experiment...<smile>
Stay well
Jacob Kruger
Blind Biker
Skype: BlindZA
"Resistance is futile, but, acceptance is versatile..."
