Cold sour tomato soup

Serves 6 Starters and mains

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Method

Peel and dice the kohlrabi into bite-sized pieces. Put the cubes of kohlrabi in a bowl then add the vinegar and salt and leave to soak for around 1 hour.

Thoroughly mix the fermented tomato sauce with the gin and habanero sauce, if using, in a jug.

Pour around 300ml of soup into each bowl, add 3-4 smoked tomatoes and drizzle a little of the smoked oil on top. Finish with 2tbsp of kohlrabi cubes, multigrain crackers and some elderflowers, if they are in season.

Fermented yellow tomato sauce

MAKES 1 LARGE JAR

First, make the kimchi. Pour 500ml water and rice flour into a saucepan and bring to the boil. Stir constantly to ensure there are no lumps. Reduce the heat and add the miso paste. Stir in and leave to simmer for around 5 minutes. Remove the saucepan from the heat and allow to cool. You can leave the mixture to chill overnight.

Add the shallots, carrots, radishes, ginger and garlic to a food processor and mix into a fine purée. If it is stiff, you can add a little splash of water.

Pour the rice flour mixture, the vegetable purée and chillies into a glass jar and mix thoroughly. Keep chilled. You will have more than required for this recipe – the surplus can be frozen and used at a later date in another recipe.

Rinse and halve the tomatoes. Clean the celery and slice it thinly. Put the tomatoes and celery in a bowl and massage in the salt. Apply plenty of pressure to the tomatoes so that they release liquid. Leave to stand at room temperature for at least 1 hour. Stir and apply pressure occasionally. Pour 200ml of the kimchi base into the bowl and mix using your hands.

Pour the mixture into the preserving jar, but leave 2-3cm of air at the top. Fill a plastic bag with some water, knot the bag and add it on top as a weight. Close the lid and seal with the bracket. Place the jar on a plate and ideally stand it in a plastic bag since it is very likely that some liquid will be ejected (make sure you don’t seal the bag at the top).

Smoked tomatoes

MAKES 1 JAR

Light the barbecue. Get a large baking tray and a smaller heatproof plate with a 1-11⁄2cm high edge (the edge cannot be higher than the one on the large baking tray). Place a thin layer of smoker chips in the bottom of the large baking tray, then place the smaller plate in the tray. Position the tomatoes, garlic, herbs and grated lemon rind on the smaller plate. Drizzle with the oil and sprinkle with the salt. Cover with tinfoil and place the baking tray with the plate on the grill while there are still flames. After a few minutes, the chips will begin to smoke and the smoke will seep out from under the foil (if the smoke doesn’t seep out, you can unfold the foil a little at one corner to check it is smoking). Remove the baking tray from the grill when it begins to smoke and leave it to stand on the ground for a few minutes. Repeat this step 3-4 times. Remove the foil to check whether the tomatoes and oil have taken on colour. Otherwise, repeat the procedure a few more times.

Place the smoked tomatoes in a sterilised glass jar, pour the oil over and seal the jar. If you like, you can fry the tomatoes quickly in some oil just before serving – this will add heat to the tomatoes and the flavours will blossom again.

This recipe was taken from the June/July 2020 issue of Food and Travel.

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