Beautiful.
Look at these.
Tomatoes, absolutely love tomatoes.
So I'm gonna go and pick everything I can get my hands on, and then we'll have a little
cookup.
So what I'm gonna make is like a clear, refreshing, summer tomato consommé.
And now this - I hate to say the word "consommé" 'cos it reminds me of when I was trained and
I had to make consommé god knows how many times.
And it's quite...
it's quite a pretty sort of posh restaurant affair, and normally like I'm not really into
that I'm into sort of home cooking.
But this as a start, in the summer when it's hot, is just like a slap round the face.
Gets your taste buds going ready for a lovely proper meal afterwards.
But, it's so quick to do that I don't mind it.
What I wanna do is get these tomatoes, about two kilos, into the food processor.
I'm not gonna put quite all of them in there 'cos I've done it before and it sort of feels
quite high to the top.
And then I want some vodka - now the inspiration for this version is kind of like a Bloody
Mary, a play on Bloody Mary which is obviously the tomatoes, your vodka, horseradish.
Couple of shots, right?
And then horseradish - horseradish and tomatoes work really well together they're really good
friends.
So I want a nice five centimetre bit, just sort of peeled.
Or you can get little jars of the kind of pre-grated hot stuff.
But not the stuff in cream, just the grated horseradish.
And you can kind of get the skin off and just chop it up, roughly if you want.
There you go there's your horseradish.
In with the tomatoes, the vodka, I want a good pinch of salt, a good pinch of pepper.
I want a swig of vinegar - you think I've gone bonkers.
Right, a tablespoon.
And then basil - a little handful of basil like that, and stalks, can go in there.
Garlic, two cloves right, to give it a nice sort of garlic-y hum.
Once you've peeled that put 'em in, whole, into here.
Lid on top, give it a wazz until it's completely sort of whizzed up into a slush.
Smell that, really good.
Bit more vodka.
Just a bit more.
While I'm doing that, get yourself a bowl, and some muslin.
Now, you can get muslin in good kitchen shops, you know sort of those household shops do
it, and also if you go to your butcher's they use muslin to wrap the big joints of meat
in.
And y'know, especially if you're a young lady you can chat up the bucher, ask 'em for a
free bit of muslin, like my nan used to in the war.
My nan used to get extra portions of meat from Louie Rutter, the local butcher.
We all reckon she was having an affair but she denies it.
Anyway, put your hand in right, like that.
And we've got this completely wazzed up pulp of tomatoes, and at the moment it looks horrible,
it looks absolutely disgusting.
But bear with me.
Pour it in.
Now the four layers of muslin very very delicately filter the tomatoes.
So what comes out the other end is the most incredible see-through amazing juice.
And what's brilliant is we just tie this up like one of those old-fashioned seaside hats.
Let me get a hook.
And I put the hook through here, and already, and you can see it's completely clear there.
When you taste what is going on in there, cold, on a hot summer's day.
Incredible.
Now you can see this colour here is a little bit bland, so what I wanna do is just get
a nice little slice of beetroot.
So I'm just gonna plop this in here and I'm gonna hang this in the fridge, and you can
actually almost see the colour coming out of that beetroot already.
That'll just give it a lovely sort of rosé wine colour.
So just gonna whack this in the fridge.
Sort of six-seven hours you can get a pretty good product, so do it in the morning for
dinner at night, or do it at night overnight for dinner the next day.
But it's funny as you walk down here Bri you kind of go through this green green green
and then you get these little hints of colour ((Yeah)).
Actually quite fun picking them because you kind of have to really struggle, lift them
up, and you're never quite sure what you're gonna find underneath ((Yep)).
That's one of my favourites that's Matt's Wild Cherry ((Oh wow)).
They just... just absolutely explode, but that really gives it a kick, that's a real
tomato kick that.
Yeah, and they're tiny aren't they, absolutely beautiful little things ((Perfect)).
That's another of my favourites, Black Krim, it's a...
I think I took a couple of big ones of those this morning.
Yeah, it's really dark, really luscious fruit.
Great inside innit, yeah.
They're just gorgeous when you slice 'em yeah.
Do things eat these much?
They're not too bad, I mean it's fairly controlled in here.
I planted a lot of basil and marigolds.
So what does that do?
Well the basil helps repel white fly, which is one of the main problems on tomatoes.
Same with the marigolds, they act as insect repellants.
They just don't like hanging about it too much ((Yeah, yeah)).
It's the aroma that they give off.
If you got a lot of green ones left over, or they fall off...
put them on a windowsill, stick a banana next to them.
And as the banana ripens it gives of ethylene gas and speeds up the ripening process.
So that's why bananas make your avocados ripen quickly ((Yeah, that's right)).
So ethylene...
((Ethylene gas yeah)).
Wow.
This is nice and chilled, this has had about six hours.
Still dripping away so you could have probably another three hours out of it.
But um, put that there for the moment.
I wanna show you this right and you gotta forgive me for how pretty it looks 'cos it's
not really my normal style, but this is an incredible dish it is the easiest thing to
do.
A brilliant way to use tomatoes and big 'em up.
And it's kind of the pure, it's the pure essence of tomatoes it smells like it, it tastes like
it, absolutely beautiful.
So ice cube in there to keep it cold, a few little bits of basil.
Nice little delicate ones is what you want, y'know a couple of little basil flowers if
you like.
And then celery, y'know on the sort of Bloody Mary theme, some nice yellow celery leaves
just flicked in there, and then a drizzle of nice extra virgin olive oil, and that is
top stuff.
Absolutely top stuff.
And then you just sort of give it a nice little slurp...
It's so good, so good.
I tell you what I'm gonna do, I'm gonna go and take Brian a little glass of this, see
if he can tell what it is.
Lovely.
Bri?
Right mate, I've just made this, try it.
Drink it from the spoon, it's like a little cold soup, and slurp away big boy.
You're experimenting on me again aren't you.
That's gorgeous!
What d'you get?
Have a slurp, you'll get the flavours.
It's so refreshing isn't it?
Okay there's a bit of horseradish in there ((Yeah!)).
Vodka, tiny bit of vodka ((Ah, now you tell me!
I'm not driving home tonight so...)).