What You’ll Need:
Recipe’s are all in the preparation, so this is what you’ll need to have ready ...
One small onion
- as a fine coincidence, you should be able to get this from your allotment at the same time as you’re tomatoes ... if you don’t want to get emotional as you peel try putting it in the freezer first before using it ... about ten minutes in the cold should keep you tear free ...
A stick of celery
- washed clean and chopped into small chunks ... I haven’t got celery growing so this is one ingredient from the supermarket shelves I’m afraid ... maybe I should grow these next year ...
A pound and a half of ripe tomatoes
– skinned and chopped ... I find the easiest way to skin tomatoes is to drop them into a pan of boiling water and when the skins start to swell up ready to burst, lift them out with a spoon, pierce the skin with a knife and peel it off .. especially easy if you have asbestos fingers!
A pint of chicken stock
- I bring in a sub here ... vegetable stock (being a veggie) instead ... I don’t think it affects the flavour (although I’ve never used chicken stock ...).
A teaspoon of dry basil
A tablespoon of flour or cornflour
Optional ingredients
- which I only include if I have them to hand in the cupboard ...
Four teaspoons of tomato puree
A tablespoon of medium sherry
A rasher of bacon ... this is in the recipe and for those who want to add it cook it in with the onion ...
What To Do ...
This recipe is really simple, so here goes ...
Fry the onion and celery in some butter until tender but not coloured. Add in the tomatoes and cook for a few minutes. Mix in flour followed by the stock, basil, tomato puree and season with salt and pepper. Bring to the boil, and then turn down the heat and leave to simmer for about half an hour.
After this time pass everything through a sieve ... a messy process but this is what I used to do before I got a blender ... or use a blender to turn everything into a scrummy ‘soupy’ consistency.
Return to the heat and season again ... adding sherry if required.
It’s now ready to eat ... yummy!!
