Absolutely Nothing To Cook – Tomato and Strawberry Gazpacho by Mimi Roberts

During my extended summer stay at our house in France, my Spanish friend Jose who, deprived of good food due to his sticking to the frightful Dukan diet, can only talk about all things gastronomic rather than either cook or eat them!

We talked about the recent closure of Ferran Adria’s restaurant in Spain which neither of us had ever been to and of his wonderful combinations of flavours. He spoke of a strawberry and tomato gazpacho, which during this hot weather, I thought would be just the thing. We have a brilliant roadside shop near us which I call the “Tomato Shop”. It has the most amazing array of different old fashioned types of tomatoes, all home grown. It also had wonderful looking strawberries…..so……..I spend a happy half hour fiddling with ingredients, overseen by Jose and came up with the following gazpacho.

Strawberry and Tomato Gazpacho

500 grams of strawberries, hulled
3-4 large ripe tomatoes , unskinned.
Half a red pepper
1 red chilli
large clove of garlic, crushed
4 spring onions, white bits only
1 soup spoon of sherry vinegar
sugar to taste
light chicken stock (as much as you think it needs)
salt and pepper
Olive oil

Ideas for garnish are :
Cubed pieces of melon or crunchy pancetta or cubed cucumber and chopped mint, or basil or, for something special, some lobster.  I did pancetta which I cooked in a hot oven on baking parchment until it was crispy, then crumbled it over the soup with some basil leaves just before serving

To make the gazpacho, put all the ingredients in the liquidiser and give it a good whizz, taste and add more of whatever you think it might need so that the balance is perfect. It should be sweet, spicy and sour at the same time. If it is too thick, then add more stock. Then put through a fine sieve and chill for at least 4 hours. Serve in either glasses or bowls and garnish with the above suggestions.

Absolutely Nothing To Cook – cod baked with tomatoes and tarragon

I completely made this up last night, in the hope of recreating a similar dish I had in France a couple of weeks ago. It was delicious but in the words of my husband – my fiercest critic – it could be “refined slightly”. So here it is, warts and all with the refinements in brackets…..not that I don’t agree with them obviously.

2 x fillets cod

a pack of baby plum tomatoes, halved (or big red tomatoes skinned and cut in to chunks)

a handful of fresh tarragon – leaves torn

a handful of fresh oregano – or not quite a handful, just as much as you fancy

1 large clove garlic, peeled and thinly sliced (or 5 cloves of garlic slightly crushed with skins on)

half red onion – chopped finely (1 red onion peeled and left in chunks)

a good glug of olive oil

a splash of good balsamic vinegar

salt and pepper

Here’s what I did and might do differently next time….

Chop your onion, garlic and tomatoes and throw in to a roasting pan. Mix together with the tarragon, oregano, olive oil and balsamic and season with salt and pepper. Bake in a medium oven (about 150) for half an hour or so or until all the juices are starting to run from the tomatoes and the onions are soft and caramelly.

I might use large tomatoes next time and skin them before adding them to the tray. The skins on the little tomatoes didn’t bother me at all to eat, but the pile left on my husband’s plate at the end, did. I might also add more garlic – I was using some we brought home from France and was a little over cautious as it’s pretty strong stuff. I might also add a tiny teaspoon of sugar as it could have done with being a little bit sweeter. Or maybe more balsamic….you choose.

Once the tomatoes are all delicious and soft, push them to one side and lay the cod fillets in the middle of the tray. Spoon over the tomatoes so they cover the fish and  put back in the oven for 10 minutes until the fish is just flaking apart and no longer clear in the middle.

I served it with some steamed samphire and a little bit of crusty bread for the juices. And there you have it.

The photo is of the more delicious French version  – he used some seeds I think too but I reckon pine nuts could work quite well for a bit of crunch.