Introduction
The inspiration for my One Planet Plate came for wanting to celebrate one main ingredient and get the most flavour from that ingredient and to explore the different flavours and textures you can create from that single ingredient. A Celebration of Tomatoes does just that, from leaving some raw to slow roasting & dehydrating tomatoes in varying degrees of thickness and cuts to the different lengths of cooking times. All using our dehydrating machine and hot cupboard both of which use less than 1500 kw/h. Crunchy tomato wafers, super sweet dehydrated tomatoes & simply flavoursome raw tomatoes carefully balanced with a light tomato sorbet.
Not only is dish sustainable through power all our ingredients are produced locally. The tomatoes from Essex and the Rapeseed Oil from the Cotswolds. A particularly nice rapeseed oil high in Omega 3 and all our old oil being collected by R – Oil to then power their machinery.
Method
Sorbet Method
- Cut all tomatoes up into small cubes and place in the water
- Add the sugar and bring to the boil and simmer till the tomatoes go pale and the stock syrup goes a nice dark red colour and pass through a fine sieve
- Leave to cool and then churn in an ice cream machine to a sorbet and freeze
Tomato Salad Method
- Pick an interesting selection of different shaped, sized & colour heritage tomatoes
- Cut a selection in half, slices & wedges, with the smaller tomatoes leave these to use raw
- With the slices season with salt and dry roast at 100c till starting to form a skin
- The larger quarters season with salt & pepper and dehydrate in an oven at 50c for 5 hours so they are dry and vibrant
- With the large halves these can be roasted at 200c so they cook quickly with a little colour
- Toss the raw tomatoes with salt, pepper and dressing, keep some dressing for plating up and garnishing the plate
Tomato Salad Dressing Method
- With a stick blender blend the ingredients together to make a smooth dressing
To plate
Micro leaf Basil – from Growing Underground Battersea
Arrange the tomatoes in the middle of the plate to show all the textures & colours, drizzle some of the dressing over the tomatoes and a little around the plate, along with the micro basil. Spoon a neat quenelle of the sorbet on part of the salad and serve.
