The Summer is upon upon us, and I hate it! Too much heat can be a pain! Last week at my Softball game I got a bit of heat fatigue, got light headed and one of my teammates had to drive my car home. Big thanks to J.J. and Katie! Once I got back to "Casa Sexy" and got an ice pack on me to cool my body down I was fine. But it got me thinking about some cool things to try in the kitchen, a hot-ass kitchen in 95 degree heat is simply not a fun experience...
Anyone who knows me well knows that my absolute favorite restaurant is The Kitchen. That is not open for debate, over the years I've shared great times there with several of my closest friends, and they all love it as much as I do. Recently I came across a link from The Kitchen's sister restaurant, Ella Dining Room and Bar, where owner Randall Selland was doing a demonstration on making an Heirloom Tomato soup. To me this was a major thing because one of the alluring facets of The Kitchen is that it is a place where they do demonstration dinners. Everything is prepared right in front of the guests, so each person can see how the magic is done. But the food and service there (and the wine list!) is so good, its impossible to pay attention to anything else!
The recipe calls for the following:
Ingredients
2.5 lbs. heirloom tomatoes (any variety you prefer)
3 Tbl extra virgin olive oil
¼ bunch cilantro
1-2 cloves garlic (coarsely chopped)
½ shallot (coarsely chopped)
2 Tbl salt
salt and pepper to taste
Core and chop the tomatoes into eight to ten pieces each. Combine all ingredients in a large bowl and gently mix together. Allow to sit for five (5) hours at room temperature for the olive oil and salt to break down the tomatoes and combine the flavors. Run the mixture through a food mill or blender then salt and pepper to taste. Serve soup chilled or at room temperature.
Serving suggestions for accompaniments: burrata cheese and chives, crispy soft shell crab or Dungeness crab salad.
That's it. Sounds simple because it was simple to do. As always when I try something new in my kitchen, I like to invite my best friend Nicole over, because if I didn't she would be...irritated. I also invited my buddy Amir to come out to try it. I invited him because he's always saying that he wants to see my skills in the kitchen with something new, so this was his shot.
The prep work started early Saturday morning, while Patty was out and about she called me and said she was by the Davis Ranch Farmer's Market and did I need anything. Since I wanted to stay as close as I could to Randall's directions, I asked if she could bring home a few pounds of Heirloom Tomatoes while I gathered the rest of the things I needed. Once I had the tomatoes I went ahead and sliced them up, placed them into a big bowl added the Olive Oil, garlic, shallot and cilantro, covered with plastic wrap and left it alone for 5 hours...
Once Nicole arrived it was time to finish the soup. But first Patty wanted to use some of the remaining tomatoes for some grilled cheese and chicken sandwiches. While that was happening I prepared some Dungeness Crab salad for the topping on the soup. And I used fresh real crab for this, imitation crab has it's places...but my kitchen isn't one of them. The salad was equally simple to prepare, I used 1/2 a pound of lump crab meat, 1/2 a shallot, some chopped parsley, 1/4 cup of mayonnaise, and three drops of Sriracha sauce. And I mean drops, this stuff is seriously hot and can overwhelm the taste of the crab if too much is used, we're just going for the hint of flavor, not the burn of the heat. After finely chopping the shallot, I added it to the crab and parsley and mixed in the mayonnaise and the drops of sriracha. As it chilled I went to finish the soup. After seeing how the tomatoes had broken down in the olive oil of the past several hours, I scooped half of it into my blender, I don't have a food mill, and I blended it until it was the right consistency and poured in into the soup tureen, I then blended the remaining portion and placed in the tureen as well. Now it was time to plate it up! I took a ladle and put two scoops of the soup into each bowl, then topped it with a tablespoon of the crab salad and served it with the sandwiches Patty made, along with some corn on the cob she whipped up too. And to top it off I had a bottle of La Crema Sonoma Coast Chardonnay that a teammate had given me, (Thanks Aimee!) and it was time to grub!
All of us were stunned at the flavors and how they were so rich but not heavy. Nicole staked her claim for seconds, and a T.G.P., which I have always felt is the best compliment a person can pay their chef. Believe me, I've had many T.G.P.s from The Kitchen. Dinner was great, it was fun to hang out on a Summer night with my Randall Selland-inspired soup. And for me watching him prepare it was like a lesson from one of the true culinary masters, and if he does any other demos like this I will be trying them as well! Truly a good night!
And since I'm all about sharing the wealth, so for those who want to see Randall walk you through the preparation of it...
http://www.elladiningroomandbar.com/blog/post/randalls-heirloom-tomato-soup
Until next time!
Big thanks to Randall and his teams at The Kitchen and Ella!
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