It's one of those rare occasions where on a free day I find myself able to just relax, safe in the knowledge that there isn't any desperate chores that need doing. So, what better way to while away the time than to make an extremely time consuming dish like a consomme ( look up Jamie Oliver's recipe for this). Another good reason is that there was an absolute glutton of a crop of tomatos hanging on the vine.
The recipe consisted of blending lots of tomatoes with basil (also from the garden), chilies and vodka. You then enrap the blended ingredients and allow them to strain through three layers of muslin cloth. This is where you utilise the laziest of all natural forces, gravity, to do all the work, extracting a crystal clear essence of tomato from the pink opaque liquid you started with.
Cool this in the fridge, sprinkle with a little just budding basil leaves and a little olive oil and serve with ice cold vodka, we chose grey goose, the smooth weighty body, with a bit of citrus but without the blasting heat and chemical ethanol taste of cheaper vodkas matched perfectly. Sublime for sleepless hot evenings.
Comments