Ever since living in Spain, attending my first and only lesson at a cooking school there, and being obsessed with El País’s food blogger El Comidista, I’ve been into making Spanish food. With a stack of recipes from the cooking school and countless ones online, I’ve been able to make everything from croquetas to gazpacho. Still, one of my favorite dishes has always been pisto manchego.
With a boatload of vegetables, compliments of Giacomo's parent's garden in Vicenza, I figured it was a good a time as any to make pisto manchego. A sort of Spanish ratatouille, I knew that all the vegetables would be used up with that recipe.
Then I took a closer look at the recipe. It'd had it for years but never actually read through the whole thing. Upon inspection I realized I needed tomate frito, certainly not an item which you can find easily in Italy. My only option was to make it. Besides, we had a lot of tomatoes (not quite 3 kilos worth so I cut this recipe in half) and I discovered you can freeze the extra for later use in other Spanish Recipes. Even though this recipe may take up a big chunk of your evening, it’s delicious (I also put it on slices of bread and just ate it like Pan con tomate) and in my opinion, well worth the effort. Especially since it makes it easy for you to later make the recipe for Pisto Manchego which I will post next week!
P.S. Here you can enjoy the recipe in both English and Spanish!
Tomate Frito (recipe adapted and translated from Recetas de Rechupete)
Time: 2 hours +
Ingredients:
3 kilos(6.6lbs) of ripe tomatoes
3 large red bell peppers
1 green bell pepper
2 cloves of garlic
2 small cayenne peppers (I put even less)
1 bay leaf
Salt (to taste)
Freshly ground black pepper (to taste)
1 tablespoon of sugar
150ml (2/3 cup) of extra virgin olive oil
5 large onions
Directions:
1) Thinly slice the onions. Cut the garlic cloves in half and set aside.
2) Add a generous amount of olive oil (up to 2/3 of a cup) to the largest pot you have. Once the oil is hot, add the onions and 2 whole cayenne peppers. Reduce the heat and cook the onion for about 15 minutes or until the onions are golden in color and are beginning to caramelize. These caramelized onions are what give the sauce a touch of sweetness meaning fewer calories, in the form of sugar, need to be added to the sauce.
3) While the onion cooks, chop the peppers and remove the stem of the tomatoes. Chop the tomatoes into quarters, if they are very small in half.
4) Add the garlic, peppers and tomatoes to the pan. Set the heat to maximum. Stir, being sure to combine all the vegetables so their flavors cook together. Once the vegetables begin to release liquid, turn the heat down to medium. Then add a bay leaf and let the vegetables cook for 30 minutes.
5) When the time is up, remove from heat and pick out the bay leaf before pureeing everything with an immersion blender. Once blended you will end up with a semi-liquid sauce with a delicious red hue. Be sure and try the sauce at this point to see if it needs salt or more sugar to counteract the acidity of the tomatoes.
6) Return the sauce to low heat. Add salt, freshly ground black pepper and sugar to taste. The amount of sugar you end up adding depends on the sweetness of the tomatoes, how much you caramelized the onions and your own personal taste. Typically 1 tablespoon of sugar is enough but if you would like your sauce sweeter, be sure to add more. Now, let the sauce reduce slowly, for anywhere between an hour and an hour and a half. Stir every 15 minutes to prevent it from sticking to the pan and burning.
7) Now finished you can use it to make pisto manchego and other recipes that call for tomato frito. If you want to freeze it, let it cool first before placing it in the freezer for up to 6 months.
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Salsa de Tomate Frito (receta adaptada de Recetas de Rechupete)
Tiempo de preparación: 2 horas +
Ingredientes:
3 kg de tomates maduros
3 pimientos rojos grandes
1 pimiento verde
2 dientes de ajo
2 cayenas pequeñas
1 hoja de laurel
Sal (al gusto)
Pimienta negra recien molida (al gusto)
1 cucharada de azúcar
150 ml de aceite de oliva virgen extra
5 cebollas grandes
Preparación:
1) Corta en juliana las cebollas y los dientes de ajo en 2 trozos, reserva los dientes de ajo para más tarde.
2) Añade una cantidad generosa del aceite de oliva (hasta 150ml) a la cazuela más grande que tienes. Calenta y cuando el aceite esté bien caliente añade las cebollas y 2 cayenas enteras. Baja el fuego a la mitad y cocina la cebolla durante unos 15 minutos hasta que empiece a coger un color tostado parecido a la miel, es el momento en el que la cebolla empieza a caramelizar y a aportar ese toque dulce a la salsa. Con la cantidad de cebollas que hemos empleado no hace falta añadir mucho azúcar a la salsa y así será menos calórica.
3) Mientras se cocina la cebolla, pica los pimientos y quita el rabillo de los tomates. Trocea los tomates en cuartos, si son muy pequeños en 2. Reservamos en un bol grande.
4)Añade los dientes de ajo, pimientos y tomates a la cazuela. Dale potencia máxima al fuego. Remueve con cuidado mezclando todas las hortalizas para que vayan juntando todo su sabor. Cuando comience a soltar líquido y burbujee baja a fuego medio, añade una hoja de laurel y deja que se cocine durante 30 minutos.
5) Pasado ese tiempo, para la cocción, quita la hoja de laurel y pasa todo por un pasapurés. Obtendrás una salsa semilíquida pero con un tono rojizo. Con un poco de pan, prueba la salsa para ver el punto de sal y si necesitas añadir azúcar para contrarrestar la acidez del tomate.
6) Ponga la cazuela con la salsa otra vez al fuego bajo. Añade sal, pimienta negra recién molida y azúcar al gusto. La cantidad de azúcar vendrá dada por el tipo de tomate, cómo de dulce sea la cebolla y cuánto haya caramelizado al principio, con 1 cucharada suele ser suficiente pero depende del gusto de cada uno. Deja que la salsa reduzca líquido poco a poco, normalmente entre una hora y hora y media. Remueve cada 15 minutos para evitar que se forme mucha costra, no queremos que se queme.
7) Ahora puedes usarlo para hacer pisto manchego y otras recetas españolas que requieren tomate frito. Si quieres guardarlo, dejalo enfriar y cuando esté templada puedes envasar y guardar en el congelador.
