CONFIT IBERIKO TOMATOES WITH DAN WATKINS, ACME FIRE CULT
Dan Watkins — Founder and Executive Chef at Acme Fire Cult, London, with Andrew Clarke, a project born of a mutual love of flames.
Cooking entirely over coals, they forgo traditional expectations of barbequed food in what Jay Raynor describes as a ‘thrillingly, impressively vegetable led, part of a self-declared determination to get away from the whole “dude food” culture around fire and smoke’. Alongside the charred and grilled, find marmite butter, ancho koji and beer molasses: unique house sauces – many using beer byproducts from their landlords, 40FT Brewery – plus pickles and ferments helping shape a low-waste menu.
With Winter Tomatoes in peak season, Dan shows us how to max out on their bright acidity and rich umami flavour. He uses flames (of course), cooking them down slowly to land on ‘spherical balls of pure liquid Ketchup’. Teamed with burrata and bottarga, this is a rich, umami flavour bomb.
BURRATA, CONFIT IBERIKO TOMATO, BOTTARGA
Serves 4
Ingredients
4 Winter Tomatoes (Dan uses Iberiko)
4 100g burrata
200ml Honest Toil olive oil
50ml good merlot vinegar
A few sprigs of thyme
1 garlic clove, smashed
1 small piece of bottarga
A good pinch of Aleppo chili flakes
Cornish sea salt
Pepper
Method
1. First, remove the eyes from the tomatoes then place them in an oven proof dish. Drizzle with olive oil and vinegar and season with a good pinch of salt and twist of pepper.
2. The idea with this dish is to cook the tomatoes low and slow, basting them now and again until they start to blister. At Acme Firecult, they do this over an open fire but you can do it in an oven at home set to 140. You want the tomatoes to begin to soften but not go to mush.
3. To plate, break open the burrata and season well. Place the blistered tomato on the burrata and spoon all the juice and oil from the dish over the top. Finish with Aleppo chili flakes and grated bottarga.
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