Seeing red

It was all so green when I left. A week away –  a bonny wedding weekend on an island in the Scottish Hebrides called Tanera Mòr and then a few days slightly too far outside London with my family – and Testaccio market is splattered, like a Cy Twombly canvas, with red. There is still green of course, a market patchwork of asparagus, peas, spinach, slim beans, forest green chard and soft heads of spring lettuce. But it’s the startling splatters: tomatoes, strawberries, crimson cherries and bunches of blushing radishes that are catching my eye.

I’ve never found peeling tomatoes a faff. Quite the opposite in fact, I find the spa-esque process – a hot plunge, a nick with a sharp knife, a cold plunge before peeling –  thoroughly pleasing. Maybe I should get out more? My carelessness with a handful of tomato skins once blocked the sink in the smart kitchen Romla and I were doing some rogue catering in. Fortunately the husband of the house, a man so handsome I turned the same colour as the tomatoes, happened to be in the kitchen while our twenty-three year old selves were peering anxiously into the blocked Belfast. He strode over (I think he might even have been wearing buff riding breeches) plunged his aristocratic hand down the plughole, scooped out the offending red skins and complimented us on the suggestive smell of dinner.

These are Sicilian pomodori Piccadilly. They are fleshy, flavoursome things the size of small plums that smell of the tangled vine they grew on. Tomatoes like this make me forget my jaded self who has shaken off much of her Roman romanticism, and remember the Rachel who first arrived in Italy nine springs ago. The woman who stood staring in gastronomic awe at the mounds of red: tiny orbs, beefy cow hearts, fat fluted saucers, pendulous plums and who ate them chopped, sliced or simply squashed idly onto bread with a careless quality of olive oil and too much salt day after day after day just because she could.

Having sung the praises of Italian pomodori when I know full well many of you might not be able to find such full hipped and red lipped tomatoes, I should hasten to add today’s recipe is a forgiving one. Extremely forgiving, as it involves the saving grace of many-a-mediocre tomato: a flesh shriveling, flavour intensifying roast.

Having peeled your tomatoes, sliced them in two and set them cut-side-up in a well-oiled baking dish, you tuck a thin sliver of garlic into the soft pulp and place a quarter of anchovy filet on top of each half. You then scatter some soft, craggy breadcrumbs, a little finely chopped fresh rosemary, salt and black pepper over the upturned faces before dousing the whole tray, fearlesslessly and drunkenly with extra virgin olive oil. I find a glass of wine is helpful when a reckless olive oil hand is called for.

You bake your well-seasoned tomatoes at 180° for about 20 minutes or until they are extremely soft, collapsing, curling sweetly at the edges and starting to suggest sauce. Until the anchovies have dissolved into the tender tomato flesh and the olive oil inebriated breadcrumbs are crisp and golden.

The combination of roasted tomato: sweet and savory with the intense, salty fishiness of the anchovy, a warm notes of tomato smothered garlic, the smoky, floral rosemary and crisp olive oil soaked breadcrumbs is a mighty good one. A mighty good one that sings. I agree with the brilliant Niki Segnit ‘If you have ever wondered what Unami is, a mouthful of tomato and anchovy should settle the matter.’ I’d go one step further and say a mouthful of roasted tomato with anchovies (the fat, plump Sicilian ones preserved under coarse salt that you need to soak and then de-bone) rosemary and olive oil breadcrumbs and the Unami matter is settled and some.

You could eat your tumbling mess of anchovy, rosemary and breadcrumbed tomatoes with a grilled lamb chop, pork chop or slice of roast chicken. Alternatively – and I appreciate the suggestion of breadcrumbs on bread might sound odd –  they are excellent smeared on toast. Or you could do as I did today.

That is mash your baking tray of warm tomatoes clumsily into a rough sauce with the back of a wooden spoon and then stir this sauce into some al dente linguine or spaghetti. Don’t worry about serving bowls or dishes, mix the pasta with the sauce directly in the baking tray, making sure you diligently scrape and stir every sticky, oily morsel and crumb. Someone will also have to take a crust of bread to the tin once all the pasta is served-up.

This is how I (we) like to eat: pasta with a sauce that both strokes and punches. A green salad of lettuce, lovage and wild rocket and then a dozen crimson cherries made a nice finish to a Wednesday lunch.  Now about that flat hunting.

Linguine with oven roasted tomatoes, anchovies, rosemary and breadcrumbs

Serves 4

• 1 kg ripe but firm and flavoursome tomatoes (plum-shaped Piccadilly work particularly well)
• extra virgin olive oil
• 2 plump cloves of garlic
• 6 large or 8 small anchovy filets (preserved under oil or better still under salt)
• 60 g soft, craggy breadcrumbs
• a little finely chopped rosemary
• salt and black pepper
• 450 g linguine

Set the oven to 180°

Peel the tomatoes by plunging them first into boiling water for 60 seconds and then very cold water. The skins should slip and pull away easily.

Half the tomatoes and sit them – cut side up –  in an oiled baking tin. Peel and slice the garlic very thinly. Tuck a sliver of garlic into the fleshy pulp of each half. Using scissors, snip the anchovy fillets into quarters and sit a quarter on each cut tomato. Scatter the breadcrumbs and chopped rosemary over the tomatoes. Sprinkle and grind a little salt and black pepper then douse everything very generously with olive oil.

Bake the tomatoes for 20 minutes or so or until the tomatoes are very soft and starting to collapse and the breadcrumbs are golden and crisp. You need to keep a beady eye on them.

Cook the linguine in a large pan of well-salted fast boiling water. Using a wooden spoon, gently mash the tomatoes into a very crude, rough sauce, add the drained pasta, stir and serve immediately.

Roll with it

The number eight tram rolls a good route. At least I think so. Starting in Largo di Torre Argentina, it cuts straight and then crosses the bridge, runs the entire length of Viale Trastevere before curving its way along Gianicolense and sliding into the terminus at Casaletto. On a good day; clear and avoiding the rush, top to tail takes about 22 minutes. On a bad day; rain and rush, it takes 35.

I don’t very often top to tail or tail to top on the number eight. Most days I’ll ride a section though: The Ministry of Education up to work at the children’s theatre, the theatre up to the park, purveyors of fine pizza bianca back to The Ministry, my biscuit shop up to Stazione Trastevere. Come to think of it, of all my routes – there are many, I’m both dedicated and dependent on the exasperating Roman public transport system – this is the one I ride the most.

Then every so often, last Saturday for example, we roll the whole line and are not only reminded what good curved cut the N° 8 makes through the city, but what a good destination awaits at the end of the line.

Occupying the ground floor of a nondescript modern building just yards from the tram terminus and identifiable only by a small yellow sign, the trattoria Cesare al Casaletto is, from the outside, unremarkable. I’d passed by, at first oblivious and then dismissive, dozens and dozens of times. Then, on advice from Katie, we went for lunch. The best lunch we’d had in a long time. And so we went back, again and again, each visit reaffirming our conviction.

Bright and luminous, da Cesare is the antitheses of the archetypal shadowy and surly Roman Trattoria - I should add I like shadowy and surly from time to time. It’s quietly elegant yet cordial and comfortable. On Saturday we were given a table in the nicest corner with plenty of space for a high chair. Da Cesare is a family trattoria in the truest sense and this is personified by the owner’s bold little girl who marches up to your table to say ciao.

To start, we divided a portion of plump, preserved anchovies: oily, fiendishly fishy filets to be squashed onto bread and polpette di bollito misto; delicate, fragile, deep-fried spheres of breaded shredded veal served with a spoonful of pesto. Then we shared a primo of fresh egg pasta with vignarola (braised artichokes, peas, broad beans and spring onions) and pecorino romano cheese. We paused. For secondo my companion had baccalà alla Romana (salt cod with tomatoes) and I had involtini al sugo, two quietly delicious beef rolls in a rich tomato sauce. There were also side dishes, one a tangle of dark-green ragged cicioria ripassata and another of chips. Such good chips. We finished with coffee and biscuits that had not long been pulled from the oven.

It took me a few visits to understand what makes the Food at da Cesare so special. Of course it’s the excellent ingredients, the skill and a lightness of touch that transforms traditional Roman food – the menu is much the same as any menu you might find in any trattoria – into something so vital and impressive. Then, after the fourth or fifth meal, I understood. It’s the care taken that sets da Cesare apart. Real care without pretense or fuss, without swagger or caricature. The food makes even more sense when you talk to the owner, Leonardo Vignoli or his wife. Both are gentle, modest, passionate, attentive: a rare combination in Rome.  The wine list is as splendid as the food. As is the advice to help you navigate it.

As I paid the bill I asked Leonardo about the involtini, the two unassuming beef rolls that had been simmered tenderly in tomato sauce, maybe the nicest I have ever eaten (and I have eaten a few.) ‘Thin slices of good beef, well seasoned with salt, pepper and garlic wrapped around impossibly thin batons of carrot and celery and then simmered gently in tomato for an hour and a half‘ was his advice. ‘How would I know they were done?’ I asked. ‘Touch and taste‘ was his reply. Then he was gone – politely of course – back into the kitchen and I was left with a queue of questions trailing down my throat.

My first attempt was acceptable. My second very reasonable. My third attempt at involtini however, was a resounding success. Not quite reaching the benchmark set by Da Cesare, but nearly. Ask your butcher to cut you 10 thin slices of beef – rump or chuck is ideal. Season the slices prudently with fine salt, freshly ground black pepper and very finely chopped garlic if you so wish (I don’t.) Position a fat bundle of painfully thin carrot and celery batons at the bottom of the slice and then roll, tuck and roll until you have a neat parcel. Secure the roll lengthways with a toothpick. You brown your involtini in hot oil, nudging and turning, until they are evenly coloured and then you cover them with wine and tomato and simmer for a good long while.

The tomato reduces into a dense, flavoursome sauce and the beef rolls – with their neat bundle of savory – are simmered into tenderness. I wouldn’t have given these involtini a thought (never mind a second glance) before coming to live in Rome. Old-fashioned, boring and just damn fuddy-duddy I might have mumbled. Little did I know. Made carefully with good ingredients, they are simply delicious, richly favoured and well, very Roman. And the word involtini? It comes form the verb avvolgere (to wrap) so literally translated means, a little thing that has been wrapped.

Of course involtini work well as part of a Roman-style lunch. That is; a tasty antipasti, a modest portion of pasta and then a roll (or two) served alone on a white plate with nothing more than a crust of bread to scoop up the sauce. They are also good in a more English manner, that is beside a pile of extremely buttery mashed potato (what isn’t?) Roll with it.

Involtini al sugo  Beef rolls in tomato sauce

Inspired by the involtini at  Cesare al Casaletto with advice from my butchers at Sartor.

serves 4 (two each with two extra to squabble over)

• 1 large carrot, peeled and cut into extremely thin batons (roughly the same length as the beef is wide)
• 1 large stick of celery cut into extremely thin batons  (roughly the same length as the beef is wide)
• 10 thin slices of beef (3mm or so) – rump or chuck is ideal
• salt
• freshly ground black pepper
• a clove of garlic, finely chopped (optional)
• 3 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
• a small glass of white wine or red wine
• 500 g tinned plum tomatoes coarsely chopped or passed through the food mill

Peel and then cut the carrot and celery into extremely thin batons roughly the same length as the beef slice is wide.

Take a slice of beef, lay it flat on the work surface, season with salt, pepper and very finely chopped garlic if you are using it. Again, I don’t use garlic. Place a bundle of carrot and celery at the bottom of the beef slice and then roll the beef around the batons, tucking the sides in if you can, until you have a neat cylinder. Secure the roll with a toothpick along its length.

Warm the olive oil in a heavy based saute pan. Add beef rolls, and cook, turning as needed, until browned on all sides, which will take about 6 minutes.

Add the glass of wine to the pan, raise the heat so the wine sizzles and evaporates. Add the tomatoes and stirring and nudging the rolls so they are evenly spaced and well coated with tomato. Bring to a boil, and then reduce the heat to medium-low. Cook the rolls covered partially – gently stirring and turning the rolls a couple of times – until meat is cooked through and tender which will take about 1 and a half – 2 hours. Add a little more wine or water if the sauce seems to be drying out during the cooking.

Lets the rolls rest for at least 15 minutes before serving with a spoonful of sauce and some bread.

Reliable

The daily act of turning raw ingredients into good food not only gives me great pleasure, it gives me a sense of purpose and place. Purpose, because this daily act and the sequence of tasks that sustain it: planning, shopping, sorting, washing, soaking, prepping, tasks which can occupy a scant 30 minutes of one day and then eight hours of the next, give structure and sense to my day. Place, because good food requires good ingredients and sourcing good ingredients makes you acutely aware of where, of here and there.

This daily act can also leave me floundering, frantic and furious! When this is the case it’s almost always because I’ve mislayed my sense of purpose, that is structure, common sense and good taste, or my sense of place. By place I don’t just mean my physical place, that is Rome in early December (quince, potatoes, pumpkins, celery root, artichokes, kale, carrots, porcini, olives, grapes, winter melon) but my place as a cook. A home cook with strengths but also limits, a small child and a propensity for mess, tears and very bad language when things go squew-wiff.

I get most pleasure and have the greatest sense of purpose and when I’m turning raw ingredients into the habitual dishes that sustain me, my family and my friends week after week, year after year. I am – as you’ve probably noticed – extremely habitual. The bean soups, sauces, pastas and risottos that are the cornerstones of my diet. The roasts, pans of beans, trusted cakes, jams, salads (usually green) and vegetables (often boiled until unfashionably soft) that nourish me so often and so well.

I love the familiar and reassuring sequence of movements required for these dishes. Pasta and beans comes to mind: podding, chopping, the execution of the soffritto – a task repaid with both deep flavour and a glorious smell wisping around the kitchen, the reassuring rumble and occasional burp from the simmering beans and then the thick bean soup, the engaging and amusing stir-squeeze-squelch-stir as you pass some of the soup through the food mill. Or roast chicken, which I talked about the other week! The mere thought of cold hands and colder water, patting dry, slathering butter recklessly all over a good bird, shoving a lemon up its bottom and then roasting it’s until burnished makes me feel sanguine. Or salad: green leaves swirling in cold water, the spinning, tearing and dressing (with my hands.) Eating it with my hands too, but only when I’m alone.  And then there’s tomato sauce.

I make six different types of tomato sauce all of which have numerous variations. The sauce I make depends on the time of year, wether I’m using fresh or tinned tomatoes, what type of pasta I fancy eating, who I am cooking for and my (wholly unpredictable) state of mind.  Today’s panful is a stout but handsome winter sauce made with a deeply flavored soffritto of onion, carrot and celery, tinned plum tomatoes and a glug of red wine. A rich, thick and almost burgundy coloured sauce which can be served with just about any shape of pasta or with a gently poached egg and some bread.

This sauce is decidedly Italian, but I learned to make it in decidedly unItalian circumstances. That is in the old kitchen in my parents house in Harpenden (a suffocating provincial town in the home counties.) I imagine my mum drew original inspiration from a recipe by Elizabeth David or Jane Grigson but the need for the printed page had long passed. I’d love to tell you that as a little girl I stood on a stool and stirred the sauce with a battered and charred wooden spoon! But I didn’t. I watched keenly though, as my Mum chopped the vegetables, then sautéed the harlequin heap in an ungodly quantity of olive oil, added a big tin of imported plum tomatoes and slug of wine and then let the sauce bubble away on the cooler plate of the AGA for a good long while.

I spurned this sauce when I first came to Italy, enchanted by simpler, fresher ways and sheepish about my anglicized Italian cooking. It took a few years and much obsessive questioning about how Italians make their tomato sauce to discover this sort of hearty tomato sauce made with a soffritto is typical all over Italy in these darker months. One difference though, Italians (at least the ones I know) nearly always pass this sort of sauce through a food mill so the texture is smooth. I rather like it chunky – you could say that makes it more of a ragù than a sauce – but I’m extremely happy to go smooth if that’s the general consensus.

I imagine you know the routine as well as I do: peel and chop, the long slow sauté in as much oil as you dare, the sizzle as the tomatoes hit the pan and the deep glug as the wine meets the tomatoes. The slow, burping simmer. Stir from time to time and don’t be afraid to add a little more wine or plain water if the sauce is looking dense but still needs cooking a little longer. If you prefer a smoother sauce (all the Italians in my life prefer a smoother sauce) pass it through a food mill or a sieve.

Rich Tomato sauce

4 generous portions

• 5 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• a small white onion.
• stick of celery
• 1 small carrot
• 500 g / ml / 1lb 2 oz tinned plum tomatoes, chopped.
• red wine (optional)
• salt
• a pinch of sugar (optional if the sauce is very acidic)

Peel and then very small dice the onion, celery and carrot. In a heavy based pan over a medium/low flame warm the oil. Saute the onion until it’s soft and translucent then add the celery, carrot and a pinch of salt. Stir well so all the vegetables are well coated with oil. Reduce the heat and keep sautéing, stirring every now and then, until the vegetables are soft, lightly golden and – with much of the water evaporated away – richly flavored. This should take about 8- 10 minutes.

Add the tomatoes and a healthy glug of wine if you are using it, stir and then raise the heat so the sauce comes to a gentle boil. Then reduce the heat and leave the sauce to simmer very gently uncovered for 30 – 40 minutes or until it is dense (but still saucy) and dark red. Taste and season as you see fit. Pass the sauce through a food mill you prefer a smoother texture.

So lunch

We had the sauce with spaghetti and parmesan. Then broccolo romanesco cooked until unfashionably soft dressed with grassy new season extra virgin olive oil and fat anchovies. To finish, an apple and more parmesan. Pleasure, purpose and place.

Just right.

Things have shifted. I’m not talking about the big things, even though they too seem to be shuffling, extremely slowly into a different, more comfortable sort of order. I’m talking about the little things, the everyday things: the daily routine with my little boy, the state of my flat, my waxing and plucking (it was out of control) my writing here, my reading, my teaching and life in my small, oddly shaped Roman kitchen.

Unexpectedly, after a period of swatting days and meals away like flies and after a summer of feeling cross and impatient with my kitchen, my food and myself, I seem to have found a new rhythm. A nice, uncharacteristically steady (and slightly jaunty) rhythm.  I’m also managing better: the shopping, the fridge, the planning of meals, the process of cooking itself. I’ve stopped worrying about making something clever and out of character to write about here and focused instead on what suits me (and Luca) now, in September, in Rome. I’ve returned to habits that had slipped away, making do, making stock, making double, making triple (tomato sauce), of soaking beans, big bags of them, which means the base and a head start of two, three, maybe even four meals. I’ve been – for once – using my loaf.

So with another wedge of three-day-old-bread on the counter, ricotta salata in the fridge, tomato season sprinting to the finish line and with me bobbing along to this new, unexpected rhythm, there was no debate. No debate as to which recipe to make from Luisa’s book, the first book I have properly buried my head in and inhaled since Luca was born a year ago. It would be Tomato Bread Soup.

But before I talk about Luisa’s Tomato bread soup and the moment ‘When the bread cubes hit the silky tomatoes, they go all custardy and soft’  I’d like to talk a little about her book, a memoir with recipes, My Berlin Kitchen.

Having followed her blog The Wednesday Chef for five years, I already knew Luisa was a gifted writer and storyteller, that she was a skilled and engaging recipe writer – she was of course a cookbook editor. I also knew she was charming, funny and generous – she was one of the first to give my blog a deep nod of approval. I had high hopes and hefty expectations. I was even a little nervous as I ripped open the grey bag from Viking press, smoothed the slightly matt cover, admired the boots and thought ’I’ve got a bag like that‘ and opened the first inky smelling page.

It’s delicious. It’s a beautiful and intelligently written account of a young woman’s life so far. A life that weaves and navigates its way between three cultures: German, American and Italian. A life in which this necessary but often baffling weaving is understood and managed through food, through nourishing others and being nourished. It’s evocative writing that seizes all your senses: taste, smell, touch, sound and sight, but writing that manages to remain as sharp as a redcurrant, pertinent and never cloying. I particularly liked reading about Luisa’s early childhood in West Berlin in the late 1970′s. Fascinating stuff, especially when Luisa teetered on the edge of something much darker. I’d like to learn more. I loved reading about Luisa’s Italian family and her food education, an enlightenment of sorts, a process that resonated strongly with me and my own experiences here in Italy. I’m itching to visit Berlin now, next spring I think. I’ll hire a bike and pedal my way around the city before finding myself some pickled herrings, potato salad and plum-cake.

Then there are the recipes, of which there are more than 44, fitting neatly and beautifully into the narrative. Which of course is the point, a memoir with food! Food and recipes that help you understand and taste a life. Terrific stuff. And so to the recipe I had no difficulty in choosing, an Italian one on page 82, one of the simplest, one of Luisa’s favorites and one of mine too: Tomato and Bread Soup or Pappa al pomodoro.

Pappa means , quite literally, mush and pomodoro, as you know, tomato. Mush of tomatoes. Stay with me. Pappa al pomodoro is classic Italian comfort food, born out of necessity, thrift and good taste. Excellent tomatoes are cooked with a fearless quantity of extra virgin olive oil,  plump garlic and a hefty pinch of salt until they are soft and pulpy. Cubed stale bread from a coarse country loaf is then added to the pan and everything cooked for another 10 minutes. This is moment Luisa captures so well, the moment when ‘When the bread cubes hit the silky tomatoes, they go all custardy and soft.’  The pan is then left to cool – as we know good things come to those who wait – and the flavors mellow. The Pappa al pomodoro is then served with grated ricotta salata and torn basil. Delicious and exquisite, a little like Luisa and her book which was released this week. Thank you for sending me a copy Vikings and tanti auguri to you Luisa.

Now I would happily eat pappa al pomodoro twice a week, every week, especially if every now and then it was topped with a lacy edged fried egg or quivering poached one. I can’t of course, eat it every week, what with it being such a strictly seasonal panful. Of course it’s this seasonality that makes Pappa al pomodoro even more of a pleasure, a treat.  Make it now while tomaotes are still in fine form.

Luca has never eaten so much lunch in his year-long life. Viva la pappa (thanks Jo.)

Tomato and bread soup Pappa al pomodoro

From My Berlin Kitchen by Luisa Weiss

Serves 2 hungry people. It could serve 4 at a push but who wants to push!

• 3 llbs / 1.5 kg fresh, ripe plum tomatoes
• 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 1 small onion minced
• 3 cloves garlic
• salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 2 cups cubed, crustless sourdough or peasant bread
• 1/2 cup grated ricotta salata
• 1 tbsp minced fresh basil leaves

Core and quarter the plum tomatoes. Place the tomatoes and their juices in a food processor and pulse a few times to chop them coarsely, you don’t want tomato puree.

Heat the oil in a 4-quart / 4 litre saucepan. Add the onion and garlic and sauté until soft but not browned, Add the tomatoes and their juices. season with salt and pepper, bring to a slow simmer, and cook for 45 minutes, covered, stirring from time to time.

When the soup has simmered for 45 minute, add the cubed bread and simmer for another 10 minutes, Check seasoning and discard the garlic.

Serve slightly cooled or at room temperature, with grated ricotta salata and minced basil strewn over each serving.

My notes.

I didn’t measure my oil but it was a mighty glug, I’d say about 5 tbsp. My tomatoes, a variety called Piccadilly had particularly thick skins so I peeled them. I don’t have a food processor so I chopped the tomatoes roughly by hand which seemed to work pretty well. I didn’t add onion. I left the garlic in the soup until I served it. My soup was fanatically thick by the end of cooking so I added a little water to loosen everything. I forgot the basil, there was something missing.

Best to wait

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a woman in possession of a tomato fortune must want to stuff some. She might also like to slice a couple thickly for beside her mozzarella, chop some roughly for her salad, skin a kilo carefully for her sauce and crush others enthusiastically for her pappa al pomodoro. 

It was a rash and wholly impractical decision to buy an entire tray of tomatoes from the market, especially given that I was already hot, bothered and well-laden with two kilos of potatoes, a melon the size of a rugby ball and sweaty baby who was doing his best to wiggle out of the sling. It was a deeply unpleasant walk home, the sun beating down, the potato bag cutting into the crook of my arm, the wooden tray issuing forth splinters, my pitiful triceps quivering like softly set jelly and Luca squirming and crying. I considered abandoning some of my load at the corner of Via Marmorata! But then he stopped crying and giggled, so I decided to keep him. The courtyard of my building has never seemed so long or sun soaked. I cursed all 32 steps and flung open the door before dropping everything, including myself, on the cool tiled floor of the living room.

I sat on the floor for some time while my son – resisting sleep – gleefully bashed tomatoes, first against his mouth and then against the floor. The tomatoes were firm, but not that firm! So we crawled from the living room floor to the kitchen floor and ate the casualty squashed on toast rubbed with garlic, doused with olive oil and sprinkled with salt. Well I ate – and noted that I could live contentedly for days on just bread, tomatoes, oil and salt (and the odd anchovy) –  while Luca smeared enthusiastically and squealed before sleep got the better of him and he conked-out on my lap.

But enough of this rambling! Lets talk about stuffed tomatoes.

I’ve had the misfortune to encounter some pretty dreary stuffed tomatoes in my time. I’ve also – thanks to a respectable number of holidays in Greece and now seven years in Italy – eaten some good ones. Some very good ones in fact, particularly here in Rome where they are called pomodori col riso (tomatoes with rice.) Romans adore their pomodori col riso. They make them at home of course, but are just as likely to buy them from a canteen-like tavola calda or the local forno (bakery) where vast trays of stuffed tomatoes surrounded by a sea of diced potatoes are baked in the bread ovens until their red flesh is tantalizingly wrinkled and intensely flavoured, the rice moist, plump and tender and the potatoes golden-on-top but soft and sticky underneath, the delicious consequence of wallowing in the oily, tomatoey juices that collect in the tray.

Pomodori col Riso, like much of Rome’s traditional cooking, are without frills, simple, judicious and delicious. Excellent tomatoes are hollowed out and then this jumble of pulp, flesh and seeds mixed with rice, garlic, basil, olive oil and salt to make a stuffing. After a good rest, the stuffing is spooned back into the tomato shells which are then nestled amongst some diced potatoes on a shallow tray before being baked. Then - and this is vital – the baked tomatoes are left to rest for an hour or two in which time the flavors settle, the rice swells and the oily juices from the pan soak back into the tomatoes and potatoes. Good stuffed tomatoes do indeed come to those who wait.

Romans know not just to wait, they also know that the key to good stuffed tomatoes is the right tomatoes. Of course stuffing is important too! As is the kind of olive oil, the type of rice (arborio,) the basil, the garlic, the potatoes and the baking. But the key is tomatoes that burst with sun and flavor, whose sweet fruitiness is balanced by just enough acidity, whose deep curves are as firm and fleshy as Monica Bellucci’s, tomatoes that smell of the tangled vine they grew on. They must be the right size too, about the size of a squashed tennis ball.

Having chosen your tomatoes, you need to slice a lid from the stalk end of each one. Then, in order to create your vessel, you must scoop out the pulp, seeds and flesh from each fruit. A teaspoon is the best tool for this job, be careful not to pierce the outer flesh and skin. Now remember, wateriness is the enemy, so sprinkle a little salt in the cavity of each tomato and set them cut side down on clean tea towel to drain while you set about making your stuffing.

Examine your bowl of pulp, seeds and flesh! Are there any particularly tough, white bits of core? If so, remove them and then blast the jumble of tomato innards with an immersion blender or snip energetically with a pair of scissors (I love to snip energetically) until you have an even pulp. Then add the rice (a generous tablespoon for each tomato plus two for luck), some finely chopped garlic, tons of torn basil, an unruly quantity of good olive oil , black pepper and a fearless quantity of salt to the pulp. Stir, taste, add more salt (it should be courageously seasoned) and leave the mixture to rest – and again this is vital – for at least 45 minutes. At this point, I too like a 45 minute rest, preferably with a cup of iced lemon tea, three biscuits and an episode of desert Island discs.

Once both you and your stuffing are well rested, spoon the stuffing into the tomato shells you have sat in a lightly greased oven dish or lipped oven tray. The tomato shells should only be 3/4 full giving the rice space to expand and swell as it cooks. Put the lids on the tomatoes (I went cross-eyed trying to the reunite the eight lids with the eight tomatoes. There were some swingers.) and scatter some diced potatoes around your red globes. Another slosh of olive oil wouldn’t go amiss. Now maneuver the dish into the oven – which you have conscientiously remembered to pre-heat to 200° – for about 45 minutes. Remove from the oven and then wait. And wait.

I waited 3 hours before eating one of my tomatoes. It’s hot in Rome and even hotter in my kitchen so my Pomodori col riso were still quite warm. They had collapsed further, slumped really, like me on the living room floor, making them seem even more wrinkled. Good wrinkles though. The rice was as plump as Luca’s bottom. I was glad I’d been so heavy handed with the seasoning. A pool of sticky, oily, tomatoey juice had collected in the bottom of the dish and I made sure to turn the potatoes in it.  I also had spoonful of ricotta di pecora beside my tomato which was entirely unnecessary (the ricotta that is) but very nice.

(As usual) I have been procrastinating and faffing over this post for weeks! Thank goodness for Jo’s post which, like so many of her posts, inspired me and guided me.

Pomodori col riso Tomatoes stuffed with rice

Serves 4

• 8 firm, fruity, fleshy and flavorsome medium-sized tomatoes
• salt
• 8 leaves of fresh basil
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 10 tablespoons of risotto rice (I use arborio)
• a very generous 100 ml extra virgin olive oil plus a little more for the potatoes
• pepper
• 1 kg potatoes

Cut the tops off the tomatoes and set them aside. One by one, hold the tomatoes over a bowl and using a teaspoon, scoop out their insides – flesh, seeds, and juice – and let it all fall into the bowl. Sprinkle a little salt in the cavity of each tomato and then place them cut side down on clean tea towel so any excess water can drain away.

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Pass the tomato flesh, seeds and juice through a food mill or blast it briefly with an immersion blender. Peel and very finely chop the garlic and add it to the tomato. Rip the basil leaves into small pieces and add them to the tomato. Add the rice and olive oil to the tomato. Season the mixture very generously with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Stir and then leave the mixture to sit for at least 45 minutes.

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Peel and chop the potatoes into 1″ dice. Put the potatoes in a bowl, pour over a little olive oil and sprinkle over a little salt and then using your hands toss the potatoes so they are well coated with oil.

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Sit your empty tomatoes in a lightly greased oven proof dish.  Spoon the rice mixture into the shells so they are 3/4 full. and then put the lids back on the tomatoes. Scatter the diced potato around the tomatoes. Slide the tray into the oven and bake for about 45 minutes or until the tomatoes are soft and just starting to shrivel and the rice is plump and tender and the potatoes are soft and golden.

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Allow the tomatoes to sit for at least an hour before eating.

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Alla Romana

I had no intention of staying in Rome, I’d spend a month at language school before taking myself and my newly acquired command of the Italian language back to Palermo to continue my demented not-very-grand-tour, eat more granita di mandorle and parley with the locals. However as the days got longer and warmer and as May drew to a close it became painfully clear that a month of intensive lessons was no match for my linguistic inaptitude and that never mind chinwagging with the locals, if I was to even scratch the surface of this beauteous but baffling language I was to be here all summer.

Alice on the other hand suffered no such linguistic ineptitude. A month at Centro linguistico Dante Alighieri in the class above me was more than enough to sharpen her vernacular, and off she went in search of work and lessons in the preparation of Puntarelle. Fortunately, even though we’d only talked briefly at school, affinity was felt and we’d exchanged numbers and promises of lunch. And Lunched we did! Sometimes at Volpetti but mostly at Da Augusto In Trastevere, with its cramped confusion of marble-topped tables, rustling paper table cloths, robust Saturnia crockery, offhand service and typically Roman fare.

I’d already begun my education in the distinct, deliciously robust, gutsy Roman cooking at the Trattoria Augustarello in Testaccio. This continued at Da Augusto with Alice. We quickly learned it was best to skip i primi (pasta and minestra) which were better elsewhere, in favour of i secondi (the second courses) which in true Roman style were mostly the more humble cuts of meat and offal cleverly and slowly stewed or braised.

So lunch was braised beef, pecorino dusted tripe, rabbit with rosemary, slow cooked lamb, pollo alla Romana or bollito. Imposing sounding lunches I know, but remember portions of secondi are (usually) small in Italy as they are intended to follow a pasta first course. Having eschewed the pasta we’d feel entitled crowd the table with small plates of contorni (vegetable side dishes) broccoli romanesco cooked until unfashionably soft, deliciously bitter cicoria wilted and tossed with oil, potatoes roasted with rosemary and if the season was right, our favourite, a dish of Puntarelle - the peppery dandelion-like greens dressed with anchovies. Half a litre of questionable white wine and a basket of bread not long out of the oven of the nearby bakery La Renella and we were replete. 

Ever since I started this blog and having eaten at Both Augustarello and Da Augusto when he visited, my Brother Ben has been telling – and more recently pestering – me to write about Roman food more, particularly the distinct, bold secondi. Finally, seven years after declaring I ‘d no intention of staying, a respectable number of good, bad and indifferent meals in boisterous trattorias, copious advice, numerous cooking lessons, the birth of a little Roman,and a fair bit of experimenting later, I’m taking his advice! Again. Lets begin with Pollo alla Romana.

Pollo alla Romana or Chicken Roman style, is best described as joints of chicken, fried until golden in olive oil (maybe with a little pancetta) and then simmered with wine, tomatoes and red peppers. It’s a marvelously simple dish which, if made with care and good ingredients, is absolutely delicious. There is a moment of cooking alchemy when the peppers, after a little encouragement and nudging around the pan, release their abundant juices creating a carmine bath in which the chicken can simmer until tender and richly flavored. Then, as the chicken simmers, the juices thicken. The rich complexity of the sweet, rounded, unfashionably oily, deep red sauce by the end of cooking is both a joy to behold and, more importantly, to sop up with bread.

Views, unsurprisingly, about how best to make this stout Roman dish, are passionately held and vary. This version, taught to me by Alice, who was taught by her Roman Boyfriend Leo who was in turn taught by his (formidable sounding) Nonna is, after a fair bit of experimenting, the one I like most. Reassuringly, it is almost identical to the recipe in the dependable tome, my reference book of choice, Le ricette regional Italiane.

It’s all very straightforward.  In a heavy pan you fry some diced pancetta in olive oil. Once the pancetta has rendered its fat and made your neighbour question his vegetarianism, you add the chicken pieces skin-side down to the pan and fry until the skin forms a golden crust. Next up salt, several grindings of black pepper the garlic if you so wish and an unruly slosh of wine. Once most of the wine has evaporated you add the roughly chopped tomatoes and the peppers to the pan. It will seem very full! Now put the lid on the pan. You need to keep an eagle eye on the pan for the first 10 minutes, lifting the lid and stirring every now and then to prevent sticking. But once the peppers have released their abundant juices your work is (nearly) done. Half cover the pan, make yourself a Campari and put your feet up while your supper bubbles over a modest flame for another 45 minutes (the odd stir wouldn’t go amiss) or until the tomatoes and peppers have collapsed and reduced into a dense, rich sauce and the chicken is tender.

Serve your pollo alla Romana warm but not hot.

A nice plump chicken is a good place to start. The pancetta is optional but a good addition. The garlic too is optional – keep an eye on it, as if it burns it will be bitter. The peppers can be red, yellow or orange but not green.  The wine should be white, dry and rough at the edges. One variation I will note is skinning the peppers before adding them. This means scorching your red lobes and peeling away the thin skin carefully. I don’t, but you might like to.

Pollo alla Romana  Chicken Roman Style

serves 4

• A nice plump chicken weighing about 1.5 kg / 3 lb
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 50 g pancetta, diced (optional)
• salt and pepper
• a plump clove of garlic (optional)
• a glass of dry white wine
• 300 g tomatoes or passata
• 4 large red peppers

Clean the chicken and cut it into 8 eight pieces.

In a large heavy based fry the diced pancetta in the olive oil until it renders its fat. Add the chicken pieces skin side down and cook until the skin forms a golden crust, then turn them and fry the other side.

Add salt, several grindings of black pepper and the garlic and turn the pieces over three or four times. Add the wine and let it bubble away until most of it has evaporated.

Coarsely chop the tomatoes and deseed the peppers and cut them into chunky pieces. Add the tomatoes and the peppers to the pan, stir, cover the pan and leave over a over a modest heat. Keep an eagle eye on the pan for the first 10 minutes, stirring every now and then to prevent sticking. Once the peppers release their juices, half cover the pan and cook for another 45 minutes or until the tomatoes and peppers have collapsed into a dense, rich sauce and the chicken is tender.

Allow the pan to sit for about 15 minutes or better still a couple of hours or overnight (in which case you can just reheat it very very gently over a low flame until it is warm but not hot.) Serve with good bread and a glass of wine.

Pulling mussels

I first ate fave e pecorino – young broad beans still in their pods so you can peel them yourself and chunks of the salty, robust ewes milk cheese Pecorino Romano – at the trattoria Augustarello in Testaccio. It was May 2005 and I’d been in Italy for nearly two months. Following my impulsive, slightly demented, not-very-grand tour of Southern Italy, I’d paused for breath, admitted my travels might be easier with more than twenty words of comedy Italian and enrolled myself at a language school here in Rome. The school had found me a gloomy, fusty, extremely odd apartment near piazza Bologna which although detrimental for both my spirits and my sinuses, was bearable because I knew I was moving to Testaccio.

Actually I knew I wanted to move to Testaccio, having spent the day exploring this unexpectedly alluring and although fashionable, resolutely authentic quarter of Rome with my friend and curious architect Joanna. During her visit, Joanna was as eager for us to visit Testaccio’s abandoned slaughterhouse, its austere yet beautiful futurist post office, the slightly grimy but busy and dynamic iron and glass food market and the courtyards and stairwells of its public housing as she was the fountains, domes and palaces of the eternal City. This is where I want to live I decided – as Joanna urged me to enter yet another (clearly private) courtyard to take pictures of another ingenious stairwell – I just had to find a flat.

I’d go to school each morning, then most lunchtimes, head spinning with verb conjugations and the knowledge I was the bottom of the class again, I’d take the metro from piazza Bologna to Pyramide, walk up via Marmorata, turn left into via Galvani and then right into via mastro Giorgio and the heart of Testaccio. Before any serious flat hunting could be embarked upon lunch was required. It was during these slightly lonely but good days, in search of lunch, that I discovered many of the shops, stalls, bars, osteria, trattoria that I still go to everyday.

The tomato stall at the back of the market for sweet, spicy, thick-skinned pachino tomatoes which I’d wash under the drinking fountain and then eat with bread and mozzarella in the park. Vincenzo and Rita’s stall for strawberries and peas in their pods. Panifico Passi for hot pizza bianca and Foccacia. Volpetti for a piece of cheese and a slice of torta salata, Volpetti Più for a seat, a bowl of pasta e fagioli and a plate of cicoria with olive oil and lemon. The bar Linari for two cornetti and a cappuccino – I’m a great believer in breakfast for lunch every now and then. The bar Giolitti for an ice-cream and a tub of zabaione – I also believe in double pudding for lunch. Il Bucatino for spaghetti con le vongole, Da Felice for Cacio e pepe and Augustarello for my favourite lunches and lessons in Roman kitchen.

I probably leaned more Italian at Augustarello that at school, and what I learned was certainly more useful. It was here, in this simple, archetypal Testaccio trattoria, at one of the 10 or so tables that I also learned and really tasted distinct, deliciously robust, gutsy Roman cooking; carciofi alla Romana, bucatini all’amatriciana, gricia, cacio e pepe. It was at Augustarello I encountered the bold, offal based cooking from the slaughterhouse days: animelle (sweetbreads), coda alla vacinara, pajata. It was at Augustarello that a tumble of long spindly fave fresco were brought to the table along with a hunk of Pecorino Romano, a stubby little cheese knife, a glass of Malvasia and I made my acquaintance with the simple, unadulterated joy that is fave e pecorino.

I consider myself quite devoted to antipasti and this is one of my favourites, both for its ritual and its unique taste. The ritual: running your finger down the side of the fave and feeling the velvety lining of the pod, popping out the first fave, easing away it’s tough outer jacket to reveal the tender, brilliant green bean, chiseling away a little hunk of pecorino. The taste of the two together: the tender, bittersweet, soft waxy bean contrasted with the salty, grainy cheese.

Talking of antipasti, all these words are a long rambling antipasti – I’m also a believer in long rambling antipasti – tasty morsels in preparation for il primo, todays recipe, a particularly good one, the one Vincenzo and I ate yesterday, Spaghetti with fresh tomato sauce and mussels.

I’ve had it in mind to make spaghetti with a tomato and mussel sauce for some time now, ever since eating a really excellent plateful at La Torricella late last summer. I’ve daydreamed of that bowl of al-dente spaghetti coated with a soft, sweet, fresh tomato sauce and studded with tender mussels, with a sea-salty kick of shellfish liquor and heat of peperoncino, the grassy flecks of parsley and oregano. It has only taken me 8 months. Actually in Rachel terms 8 months is relatively snappy.  My procrastination however, has not been such a bad thing, I don’t think this sauce would be as deliciously soft and sweet made with the tinned tomatoes that sustain us through the winter. Now’s the time, late April, early May as the first truly deep-red tomatoes with their tangle of vines appear at the market. ‘Le cozze sono buone in Aprile, il migliore’ – ‘the mussels are good in April, the best‘ promises my fishmonger smoothing down his unruly handlebar moustache. He always makes such promises. On this occasion he’s right though, inside each curved inky blue-black shell we find a curious orange creature, plump, juicy and tender.

If like me, you have mussel anxiety – I speak of shell-fish not triceps although I have anxiety about them too, although not enough to actually do anything about their decline – I have some advice. It’s good advice, from my friend Saverio: occasional fisherman, fish market pro and excellent cook.  Advice #1  – Having established a good relationship with your reputable fish monger, establish the best time of year and day of the week to buy mussels. Go early in the morning to buy them and eat them that same day. #2 – Throw away any that have a broken shell, or remain closed even after being tapped sharply with the handle of a knife. #3 – Be fearless when cleaning, soak them in plenty of cold water for an hour, then go on, pull away that funny beard, scrub away any sand or barnacles. #4 – Cook the mussels in a single layer in large, flat-bottomed pan with a tight-fitting lid. #5 – Enlist the help of an assistant to pull the mussels from the shells.

While your assistant is plucking mussels from shells and you can get on with the business of making a very simple, fresh tomato sauce. You skin the tomatoes by plunging them first into boiling water for a minute, then cold water for a few seconds, before draining them. The skins should then peel away easily. You rough chop the tomatoes. Then you sizzle some chopped garlic, chili and oregano in a little olive oil, add a glug of wine, let this bubble away before adding the tomatoes and letting things reduce and thicken for 15 minutes or so. Then you add the mussels and their intense salty liquor to the sauce.

Now all’s that left is to cook some pasta, spaghetti or linguine, in a big pan of well-salted, fast boiling water until it’s al-dente, then mix the drained pasta with the sauce and a handful of roughly chopped parsley. You serve, drizzling a little more of your best extra virgin olive oil over each bowl, you grab a fork and a corner of bread and eat.

I’ve been out-of-sorts on the kitchen lately, the imminent move and separation, so making something really good and tasty – because this is really good and extremely tasty – was especially nice. A reassuring nod from my kitchen, an affirmation from  my lunch, a humm of approval from Vincenzo.  There are countless recipes for spaghetti with tomato and mussel sauce, but this one, from The River Cafe Cookbook is, like most things from the River Cafe kitchen and the hands of Rose Grey and Ruth Rogers, truly excellent.

As we ate I muttered earnest things like ‘Mussels are lovely and not expensive‘ or ‘I don’t know why I ever worried about cleaning or cooking mussels‘ and Vincenzo nodded. We decided Spaghetti with fresh tomato and mussel sauce tastes of springtime, of warmth, of the mediterranean and the salty lick of the sea, that its a delicious whole much greater than the sum of its parts. We decided to make it again next week, our last week together in this flat.

Spaghetti with fresh tomato sauce and mussels

Adapted from the River Cafe Cookbook Two by Rose Grey and Ruth Rogers

serves 4

• 4 tbsp olive oil
• 1.5 – 2 kg mussels in shell, cleaned (discard any that remain open)
• 2 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
• 1 small red chilli, crumbled
• 1 tbsp chopped oregano
• 150 ml dry white wine
• 1 kg ripe tomatoes
• sea salt and black pepper
• 2 tbsp chopped parsley
• 400g dried spaghetti

Heat half the olive oil in a large, wide saucepan with a tight-fitting lid. Add the mussels in one layer – this will probably mean 2 or 3 batches – cover and cook briefly over a high heat until they all open. Discard any mussels that remain closed. Drain, keeping the liquid. When the mussels are cool, remove from the shells and chop. In a small pan reduce the mussel liquid by half, strain through a fine sieve and add to the mussels.

In another pan, heat the rest of the olive oil and add the garlic, chilli and oregano. Cook for a couple of minutes, until the garlic begins to turn gently golden then add the wine and reduce for a minute. Add the tomatoes and cook, stirring occasionally to prevent sticking, for 15 minutes, until reduced. Add the mussels, juice, salt – be cautious, the mussel juice will be salty - pepper and parsley. Keep sauce warm.

Cook the spaghetti in plenty of well-salted fast boiling water until al-dente. Drain. Add mussel sauce and stir.

Divide between 4 warm serving plates drizzling a little more of your best extra virgin olive oil over the top. Eat.

If all goes well, I will get the keys to my new flat on the 2nd of May. I will then pull other mussels as I heave my large, confusing muddle of belongs across Testaccio and up two flights of stairs. It’s a nice flat, on via Marmorata with windows opening onto via Antonio Cecchi. It’s filled with light. Me, I’m filled with excitement and terror, great sadness and hope at the thought of moving. As always, thank you very much for the companionship here.

One way of looking at a tomato.

If you approach Testaccio market from Via Aldo Manuzio and enter through the large gap – it’s not really an entrance as such, more an opening – opposite La Bottega delle idee and between the back of two fish stalls, you’ll happen upon a stall that just sells tomatoes.

The stall trades all year! But now, in late August, it’s at it’s most impressive and for the tomato ardent, mesmerizing, with all three sloping sides and the back wall stacked high with dozens and dozens of shallow boxes and crates filled with the most fantastic red fruit. The pungent, sweet-sour scent of tomatoes – some so ripe the uninitiated would think them done for – and the grassy scent of tangled vines hangs thickly in the August air.

Yesterday for example, at the front of the stall, were some impressively large, fleshy, lustrous orange-red Cuore di bue (oxhearts), bottom heavy, their curious shape reminiscent of a pouch with a gathered top. Not quite as large, but a similar colour, were a round, fleshy variety called Salamone I think, and beside them several boxes of ruby-red San marzano, like long plums, meaty and robust. There were crates of dark-red Datterini, pendulous orbs, some the size of fresh dates others like almonds, clinging to their tangle of vine. Some of the Datterini were as shrivelled as prunes – their thick skins as deeply wrinkled as my Aunt Edith who smoked 30 a day and worshipped the sun. Quite intentionally wrinkled I should add – the tomatoes that is, not my Aunt – so as to intensify their sweet and spicy flavour. There were slightly paler postbox-red cherry-sized Ciliegino, slightly larger pendulous Lancelot and slighly redder Piccadilly, as well as boxes of green, variegated Camone.

There were more, but the heat, the confusion of tomato names in Roman dialect and a rumbling stomach was compromising my research. The arrival of six boxes of Casolino Spagnoletto – the tomatoes on the far right of the next picture – and the offer of a tasting was timely. These are tremendous tomatoes, so deeply ribbed they appear fluted, and pretty enough to be worn as an Isabella Blow – esque head-piece. They have thick almost purple-red skin and meaty, intensely favoured flesh.

The tomato stall is more expensive than most of the other banchi, and quite rightly so, but it means we only visit occasionally. Yesterday being one of those occasions, for advice, and to buy the tomatoes above, one kilogram a piece of Salmone, Datterino and Casolino. You see I’ve just finished reading the third chapter of Paul Bertolli’s book; Made by hand, it’s called Twelve ways of looking at a tomato. It examines, looks, at the tomato in 12 ways: colour, juice, essence, shape, sauce, conserva, complement, braise, container, condiment, side dish and fruit. The chapter is beautifully written, poetic, inspiring, and technically brilliant. Maybe a little too technically brilliant for me at times, but fascinating and utterly engaging nonetheless. The chapter also includes 18 recipes, the first of which punctuates the sections on tomato colour and juice, a beautifully simple idea: a chilled three tomato soup. Bertolli calls it a Tricolour Gazpacho. My soup was not tricolour, but I’ll come deviation later.

This isn’t just soup, this is a tomato education! Well it was for me at least. You pulp three diverse varieties of tomato – variety by variety – in a paddle blender or (like me) with your hands which is much more fun. Then you pass the pulpy masses in turn through the mouli/food mill or sieve to produce three bowls of different tomato pureès. Bertolli call them soups, so I will too. You have three different tomato soups.

The soup of the round, soft, fleshly Salamone was the thickest, with a soft grainy texture and a mild – neither particularly sweet nor acidic – plummy taste. You could add it was a bit flabby, pudgy, but that wasn’t a terrible thing. The soup of the lovely ridged Casolino Spagoletto on the other hand, was thinner but more intensely flavoured; bright, minerally, sharp and nicely acidic. The juice of the small oval Datterini was the thinnest – all that thick tasty skin and very little flesh -  but by far the most intensely flavoured; concentrated, pungent, sweet and spicy, a tomato punch.

It’s fascinating stuff. Of course, I already knew different varieties of tomatoes have wildly differing characteristics: texture, flavour, sweetness, acidity, but having them before me like this, being able to taste, examine and compare was truly illuminating. Later I made three simple tomato sauces with the remaining tomatoes and produced three such radically diffrent sugi that we were, for want of a better word, gobsmacked. But I’ll talk about the sauce another day.

Now Bertolli does something very clever: he dilutes the soups accordingly so the consistency and thickness are all different, chills them, and then to serve he pours the three different soups over the back of a ladle into a bowl so they remain separate, like a layered cocktail. I have to admit glazing over slightly while reading this section of the recipe, and in light of the fact that two of my soups seemed far too thin to dilute, the colours were all rather similar and well, to be frank, it all sounded far too complicated for such a hot day, I didn’t even attempt ladle trick. After my tasting, I simply mixed the three soups together and added – as Bertolli suggests – some very finely chopped sweet red onion, cucumber, red pepper and herbs, a little more salt and chilled the soup for 4 hours.

The soup. Well, it’s a pretty marvelous elixir, the three varieties coming together into a terrific, very red whole. Having been worried about the texture, it turned out to be spot on: the pulpy grainy Salamone providing body and proving a bit of flab is a good thing, the Casolini lending brightness and acidity and the Datterini an intense sweet and spicy punch. The very finely diced salsa is a lovely addition, augmenting the soups flavour and texture.

We liked the simplicity of this soup, especially in late August when tomatoes are so good and kitchen activity is at a minimum, it seems such a fitting way, maybe the most fitting way – after bruschetta that is – to appreciate pure, simple, tomato goodness, their very essence if you like. I have a soft spot for chilled soup; vichyssoise, cucumber, almond and this is maybe the nicest bowlful I have tasted for a while.

I’ve included the Bertolli version in full if you’d like to try the clever ladling. But first, my slightly shabby adaptation. You still pulp the tomatoes separately – so you can have a tasting. Earnest face, clipboard and note taking is optional  – but then you mix all three soups together into a slightly less unsophisticated, but equally delicious, multi dimensional, bowl of tomato joy.

Last thing – sorry this is all so long-winded already – if you are considering the clever layered cocktail idea, Bertolli suggests you use diffrent coloured tomatoes so the contrast between the three soups is even more apparent. I suggest you talk to your fruit and veg man or woman and ask which three varieties they think would work best. There is not a profusion of coloured varieties here in Rome and my tomato man – whose face suggested he wasn’t particularly impressed by most of the Technicolor varieties -  didn’t think that green tomatoes would work, so we opted for red, red and red tomatoes. If you are going for my all in option, bear in mind you want one variety to be fleshy and pulpy, another with good acidity and the third with an intense spicy sweetness if possible.

After so many words, it seems almost comical that this is such a simple recipe.

Chilled three tomato soup

Adapted from Paul Bertolli’s Made by Hand

Serves 4

• 1.5kg Ripe, tasty, tomatoes (0,5 kg each of three varieties each with different aroma’s, texture, acidity, sweetness and colour)
• Salt
• For the salsa -3 tablespoons of each of the following very very finely diced: cucumber, sweet red onion, sweet red pepper. 1 tablespoon of each of the following finely chopped: chives, parsley, basil.
• extra virgin olive oil.

Core and quarter the three types of tomatoes and place them, one type at a time, in an electric mixer with a paddle with a little salt and process until pulpy. You can also do this with your hands but do not use a blender or food processor you will end up with foam as rigid as cotton candy.

Pass the pulp through a food mill set with a plate that is sized smaller than the tomato seeds, or sieve it into a clean bowl. Rinse the mixer and food mill and proceed with the second variety in the exactly the same way. When all three varieties are pureèd and in three separate bowls, taste, season with a little salt and taste again.

Now you have two options

1 – Having tasted the three soups, mix them together, check and adjust the seasoning if necessary and then add the salsa of finely chopped vegetables and herbs. Now chill the soup for at least four hours. Serve with some raw Extra virgin olive oil poured judiciously on top.

2 – If you would like to try the Bertolli tricolour method, it is as follows.

When all three types are pureèd, check the consistency. Tomatoes of diffrent types will inevitable produce thicker or thinner pureès relative to one another. In order that the soups greet rather than invade, each other in the bowl, you may need to adjust them with a little cold water so as to achieve a liquid that is pourable without being runny.

To start season each soup with salt. If you find the flavour of the soups to be satisfying as is, refrigerate them until fully chilled – at least 4 hours. If you would like to augment the texture add the salsa described above before chilling for at least four hours.

To serve the soup, use two ladles and scoop up about 1/3 cup of two of the pureès. Pour the soups simultaneously into the backside of the bowl and allow them to flow forward to meet you. Ladle an equal amount of the third soup in the front of the bowl and at the line where the first two meet.

My next post is going to be so short you might even miss it.

I say tomato.

Vincenzo thinks I was a deprived child. He’s right of course, I was deprived – growing up, as I did, in a small town just outside London in the late 1970′s – of the full taste and perfume of good tomatoes. Tomatoes ripened on the vine under the sun that smell like the viney tangle that surrounds them. Fiery tomatoes, saturated with colour, their scent pungent, sometimes sour, almost grassy. Tomatoes with texture and flavour; some dry, meaty and acidic; others mild, soft-fleshed and plummy; some like tiny pendulous orbs, sharp, spicy and sweet.

We did have tomatoes in the home counties in 1979, but like Prime minister elected that same year, they were dreadful, depressing things grown under plastic in the suburbs of Chichester or imported from a hot houses in the Netherlands. I can only remember one type, standard sized, an unconvincing and weedy red. They were called all-purpose tomatoes. No purpose would have been a more appropriate. They generally tasted of nothing, and when they did it was insipid, rather like the white flesh next to the rind of an unripe melon. Their texture, well, two extremes here and seemingly nothing in-between; hard as a rock or unpleasantly soft, floury and mushy. Both good for hurling though!

So we avoided them. After all – despite popular belief – we had enough good things in England, even in 1979, to eat really well without tomatoes. In our family at least. And it wasn’t as if we were completely bereft! There was the annual summer holiday to the south of France, where along with Bonne maman jam, really smelly cheese, cheese with holes, long sticks of bread, tiny black olives, orange Fanta in a glass bottle with a straw, mussels and chocolate croissants, there would be good tomatoes. If we needed tomatoes back home, then it was probably for something hot and slowly cooked, in which case Mum bought tinned Italian plum tomatoes.

Vincenzo on the other hand, growing up in Sicily, Basilicata and then Rome, suffered no such tomato deprivation. He was however deprived of English peas, English apples, clotted cream, fish and chips eaten from newspaper at the seaside, London Pride, Pimms, watercress, full English breakfast and roast potatoes, but that’s anther post. His maternal grandparents had a farm in southern Sicily near Vittoria where they cultivated olives, almonds, cotton, grapes, artichokes and tomatoes. Even when his parents left Sicily, Vincenzo would return to spend the long school holidays there. Hardly surprisingly The Caristia Family – fortified by pasta and bread and lubricated by their wine and oil – lived, quite literally, on tomatoes. Straight from the vine in summer. Then sometime in late August, over a wood fire in the street in front of their house, in a pan large enough for Vincenzo and his cousin Orazio to hide in, his grandmother would bottle gallons and gallons of tomato sauce, salsa di pomodoro, to put away for the winter months.

There’ll be no talk of gallons in this very small, very hot Roman apartment. I do intend to preserve at least some salsa di pomodoro though, a modest batch, a bright taste of summer bottled and tucked away for the winter. We did a trial run last week, 3 kilos of San Marzano tomatoes – cooked until soft and then passed through the mouli – yielded 3 bottles, a small pot and only two small burns. Further bottling has been postoned until I get back from London though. For now we are enjoying tomatoes just so.

I was also hoping to write about the tomato and mozzarella salad, the lnsalata Caprese we had on Tuesday. I nearly did because the pictures are good and the mozzarella di bufala noteworthy, but if the truth be known, the tomatoes, cuore di bue, although handsome were really disappointing – not by England-in-1979 standards – but disappointing nonetheless. So I’ll just tell you about these tiny tomatoes, the ones in the pictures, i pomodori ciliegini, called maria vittoria I think, from near Naples. Perfect little things, clinging to the vine, slightly wrinkled, the skin thick, the flesh meaty, intense with flavour, sweet and spicy.

Having eaten at least a dozen straight from the paper bag – they literally pop in your mouth – we made bruschetta al pomodoro. Tomatoes on toast to me.

We cut the tomatoes in half, the larger ones in quarters, and put them in a bowl with first, a pinch of coarse salt, then after the salt, a few good glugs of extra virgin olive oil,  and some torn – not cut – basil leaves. Stir. We let the tomatoes sit, macerating, releasing their juices while we toasted two slices of sour dough bread – obviously in an ideal world we would have a grill over a wood fire. We rubbed the toast with half a clove of peeled garlic and then shared the tomatoes and their oily, tomatoey, salty, juices between the two slices. Vincenzo poured a little more oil over his.

There was some sheeps milk ricotta too, in case we wanted to squash some on top! But we ended up leaving it for supper. Bread, tomatoes, olive oil, basil, salt – what with all those years of deprivation -  I couldn’t ask for more. Good things indeed. We ate our bruschetta sitting by the front door. The heat spell has broken, and so as we ate a cool breeze whipped happily between our two rooms. Vincenzo was obsessed, as are all the Sicilians I know, that the breeze would give him a cramp. It did.

I must note that the tomato situation has improved vastly in the UK in the last 20 years – especially with trailblazing organic growers like Riverford farm.