When Life Gives You Tomatoes, Make Concasse!

A gloomy but busy day here in our kitchen today. I just finished making concasse that I will store and use for this week. Sharing with you my super simple recipe;

CASA PONIENTE CONCASSE

Concasse (pronounced conk-a-SAY) from the French concasser, "to crush or grind", is a culinary term meaning to rough chop any ingredient, usually veggies. This term is particularly applied to tomatoes, where tomato concasse is a tomato that has been peeled, seeded (seeds and skins removed), and chopped to specified dimensions. Specified dimensions can be rough chop, small dice, medium dice, or large dice. It can be used as is or added into main dishes or other sauces (for instance, if its added to a Bernaise sauce it will produce Choron sauce which is usually served with lobster dishes).

It is one of the easiest things to make and store. I love using it as a pasta sauce (I just add fresh basil. olives and sometimes anchovies) or topping it on a baguette to make bruschetta. You can be creative with it and turn it into penne vodka  by adding a little cream, vodka, ricotta and mozzarella cheese and chopped basil). Possibilities are limitless you just need to start with this basic sauce.

Ingredients :

1 kilo ripe tomatoes

3 shallots or 1 medium red onion

1 clove garlic clove

seasalt

freshly ground black pepper

1 spring fresh oregano or thyme

Procedure :

1. Score tomatoes (make "X" mark at the bottom so it will be easier to peel them once blanched)

2. Blanch tomatoes by placing in boiling water for about a minute.

3. Cut tomatoes in half, take out seeds and dice/small cubes.

4. Saute shallots and garlic over low heat. Then add tomatoes and herbs.

5. Season and cover.

6. Simmer for about 20-30 minutes until soft and all liquid has evaporated. Adjust seasoning if needed.

* Store in a tightly covered glass jar. Allow to cool before you refrigerate. 

* You can keep for about 2 weeks 

Happy Weekend,

Pattie