Feast: Tomatonista 2016
After taking a year off, Tomanista returned in 2016! This was more a bend towards riffs on classic tomato dishes, hopefully elevated.
Amuse
Tomato Oyster Rockefeller: Slice of heirloom tomato, pancetta, creamed spinach
Paired with Pickled Tomato Martini
Oyster Rockefeller is one of my all time favorite dishes. The best I've ever had is probably at the Whaling Station in Monterrey, CA just off Cannery Row, but, I thought of including a tomato so the acid of the tomato could cut through some of the richness and it worked so well.
First Course
Tomato and Stone Fruit Panzanella, Passion Fruit and Broken Tomato Vinaigrette, Burrata cream
Paired with La Fage Miraflors 2015
Panzanella is one of the great salads from Italy. Toasted or old bread, fresh tomatoes, basil and sometimes mozzarella and onions. Here, I wanted to play off the inherent sweetness of the tomato. So I took stone fruits and added them to the salad. The vinaigrette played with the most acidic tomatoes I had and combined them with passion fruit to bring out their sweetness.
Second Course
Parmesan and Black Pepper Souffle in Tomato with Crab and Uni Fondue
Villa Huesgen 1735 Riesling
This is a take on the signature dish of the Michelin starred restaurant, The Plumed Horse. Once again, using the tomato for its acidity, this is such a rich dish in the restaurant. There is no releif from the richness of the souffle or the fondue so bringing in the tomato was to cut through it. It did a good job.
Third Course
Simple Spaghetti with Tomato Sauce
La Quercia Montepulciano D'Abruzzo 2014
The Spaghetti with tomato sauce, which everyone can make regardless of their cooking ability. How then does renowned chef, Scott Conant, charge $26 for a small plate of spaghetti with tomato sauce at his flagship restaurant, Scarpetta? I can tell you how he does it and people buy it, like I did. Because it's that damn good. Perfecting simple food is never easy. For this you need the freshest tomatoes that you pass through a food mill. Then you take really good olive oil and saute in it garlic and basil. Once the garlic is golden brown and the basil black, strain the oil through a sieve and reserve. Place the tomatoes in a pot and turn on the heat. Pour the oil into the tomatoes and let it gently simmer. Then take homemade pasta and drop it. At that point, take a ladle of the sauce and put it in a hot skillet. Drain the pasta well and add it to the skillet to perform the marraige of pasta and sauce. Toss. Turn off the heat and add... butter and parmesan cheese and toss until emulsivied and light. Damn this is great.
Fourth Course
Tomato Curry with Turmeric Arancini, Roasted Cauliflower and Peas.
Vintage Golden Sour
This was the best course of the evening in my mind. I don't often venture into Indian fair, but, my friend's mother gave me her tomato curry recipe. To modernize it a little bit and bring in some flair, I decided to take what normally would have been the rice, but make a risotto out of it, mixing in Indians spices like garam masala, cardamon pods, and turmeric. Then I took fresh peas and roasted cauliflower and folded them in and chilled the risotto. I then took the chilled risotto and rolled balls that then got rolled in panko before being deep fried. It was a cool way to do rice and curry.
Fifth Course
Tomato "Steak" with Homemade Demi glace, BLue Cheese and Panko Crut, Potatoes Romanoff.
Black Stallion Transcendent
I was not sure this was going to work... so I came up with the crazy idea to treat a really thick slice of Beef Tomato (playing with the horrible pun here) like a steak. So, I wanted a dish without meat that tasted like meat. I used Beef Lard to fry the tomatoes in for 10-20 seconds on each side in a really hot skillet to get caramelization. Then put the topping on and popped it under the broiler for just a few seconds to brown that up. The idea is to not lose the texture of the tomato. When you cut into that tomato and dragged it through the demi glace, it tasted like a great steak house.
Intermezzo
Sixth Course
Tomato Spiced-Walnut Ice Cream with Sun-dried Tomato Shortbread Cookies
Ray's Honey Liquor
What an interesting desert. I have loved coming up with tomato deserts for each of these Tomantonistas. Using tomato water added to cream and an ice cream base, I churned it until soft and then took walnuts that had been glazed with a caramel infused with cayenne pepper, cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, ginger, fennel seed, etc and added those into the ice cream. it was a surprising success.
