Heirloom Tomato Essence

Overview

Difficulty: Medium

Servings: 4

Preparation Time: 90 mins

Cooking Time: 40 mins

1. Preparing the Heirloom Tomato Essence with Snow Peas:

• Peel garlic and pluck basil leaves from stems. Combine half the basil leaves, olive oil and 1 large pinch of salt in the mixer attachment or Universal Mixer and purée finely. Transfer to a jar and seal.
• Rinse two or three colourful tomatoes, cut into quarters, remove cores and cut flesh into crescents. Coarsely dice remaining tomatoes and combine with tomato seeds, remaining basil, garlic, orange juice, chilli pepper, fennel seeds and coriander seeds in the mixer attachment or Universal Mixer. Season with salt and pepper and mix.
• Wet a cloth, wring out excess moisture and place it in a large colander over a bowl. Transfer tomato purée to the colander and let drain in a cool place or in the refrigerator for several hours – or, even better, overnight.. The yield is greatest if the corners of the cloth are tied together and hung above the bowl.
• Rinse and drain snow peas and cut into fine strips using the Continuous Shredder. Boil in salted water for 2 minutes, drain and plunge into ice water. Combine tomato essence and snow peas and just barely bring to the point of boiling.
• Season to taste and transfer to jars or plates. Drizzle with a little basil oil (refrigerate or freeze remaining oil for seasoning soups and salad dressings). This soup is also excellent with brioche dumplings

2. Preparing the brioche dumplings:

• Combine flour, a pinch of salt and a pinch of cumin in the mixing bowl. Make a small well in the centre, crumble in yeast and add sugar. Heat milk until lukewarm.
• Pour into the well and stir together milk, yeast, sugar and a little of the flour. Dust this pre-dough with flour, cover with a cloth let it rise in a warm place for 10 minutes. Add butter and eggs and using the dough hook attachment, knead all ingredients slowly for 2 minutes and then quickly for 3 minutes until the dough is no longer sticky.
• Cover and let it rise in a warm place for about 60 minutes until the dough doubles in volume. Remove dough from the bowl and knead briefly. Shape into a ball, return to the bowl and let it rest for another 30 minutes.
• Place brioche dough on a work surface and divide into 4 pieces. Roll out each piece into a cylinder the thickness of a finger and cut into 2 cm-long pieces using a sharp knife.
• Let rise for another 10 minutes until the dumplings have visibly risen, then cook gently for about 5 minutes in a large pot of boiling salted water. (Or you can freeze them and, whenever you’re ready, place the desired number of frozen dumplings directly into boiling salted water, cooking for about 8 minutes.)
• When done, remove dumplings from the boiling water and serve in a soup – for example, Tomato Essence Soup (see above).