SAUCE SKETCHING

Market inspired cooking is the best course.

Part of the bounty from a recent trip up to Homestead was a large box of tomatoes from farmer Michael Borek. Or was it from his mother’s … the legendary ‘Teena’s Pride”? I have been going there since the early 90’s. The next morning and back at home I went to work preserving them in a variety of ways. Since we have a smoker I went in that direction with a portion of them. For the majority of the tomatoes I kept it simple with a minimal dressing of XVOO, salt, pepper and a touch of balsamic. The minimal treatment would allow me to either keep it au naturel as I utilized them pretty much as is in pasta dishes, homemade pizza toppings, etc. or cut into cream sauce or butter sauce or even a “Smoky Tomato Vinaigrette” But I wanted to create one “experimental” tray’s worth of tomatoes to see what directions it might take me in. In essence I wanted to make one batch with built in complexities that I felt would not overwhelm the tomatoes but build on their sweet acidity.

In the kitchen studio … my Happy Place

I pulled a batch of our homemade ‘Rhum & Pepper Paint’, out of the fridge. (think of it as a kind of savory maple syrup... but not so sweet, more umami with zest of lemon, lemon juice, black pepper, cloves and soy). I drizzled the ‘paint’ moderately on ripe cut up plum tomatoes that I had dressed with XVOO, kosher salt, freshly toasted and cracked black pepper and smoked Spanish pimentón. I smoked the tomatoes over well soaked and drained hickory chips and then removed them when they were softening. While they rested I cooked 1/2 of a peeled, medium-diced sweet onion and 1 roughly minced jalapeño in home rendered (lard) manteca until somewhat caramelized. Next I added 1/4 Cup of Spanish Sherry Wine Vinegar and reduced that by half. I pulsed the tomatoes with that (unstrained) reduction and 2 Tablespoons of tomato paste and the returned it all to a sauce pan to simmer for about 30 minutes. I adjusted the seasoning and then stored the sauce after cooling it quickly in an ice bath.

Now we’ll see what becomes of it. But before I go a gift recipe that uses tomatoes along with pineapples from our cookbook, “My Florida Kitchen”, University Press of Florida. Sketch what you will!

(From when we were making batches commercially).

CARAMELIZED PINEAPPLE SALSA (WITH TOMATOES)

Norman Van Aken © 2014

Yield: 1 1/2 Cups

For the Caramelized Pineapple

Pre-heat an oven to 475°

1 Cup pineapple, cleaned and diced medium

1 Tablespoon or less of sugar

~

Lay the pineapple on a non-stick baking pan covered with parchment paper that has been very lightly brushed with oil. Spread the sugar over on one side.

Place in hot oven for 5 minutes. Turn them over and cook for another 5-10 minutes. The sugar content in the pineapple will vary hence the variable cooking time. Watch for a nice bit of caramelization before removing the pineapple from the oven.

When they have nice color, remove and allow to cool a bit. Set aside for the salsa.

For the Finished Salsa

The caramelized pineapple

1/4 Cup sweet onion, diced small

3/4 Cup of ripe tomato, skinned, seeded and diced

1/4 Habanero or other chile as desired, stemmed, seeded and minced

1 Tablespoon cilantro or mint leaves, roughly chopped

1 Tablespoon Spanish sherry wine vinegar

1 teaspoon lime juice

2 Tablespoons of XVOO

1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

1/4 teaspoon freshly cracked pepper

Mix together and set aside 30 minutes.

Cover and chill if not using right away.