TINNED TOMATOES Diana Henry

Uses the versatile storecupboard staple in three comforting new dishes this month

DIANA HENRY Four ways with versatile tinned tomatoes

There are 12 cans of tomatoes in my cupboard right now. If you have only one tin and a few other staples – oil or butter, pasta, parmesan – dinner isn’t just possible, it can be on the table in 30 minutes and, if you’ve cooked with care, it will not taste like a standby meal.

Many of the dishes I make surprise me with their alchemy, especially the simple ones, and tinned tomatoes – canned when they’re ripe and sweet – break down into a soft, soothing mass of surprising depth. For years I often made the tomato sauce my children liked. When they were small it was on the hob at least three times a week as it was a good way of getting other vegetables – as well as tomatoes – into them. I didn’t even sauté the onion, just put it into the pan with diced celery and carrot, garlic, a generous glug of olive oil and some seasoning. I left it to cook slowly – it gave little gentle ‘blips’ every so often – for about 50 minutes. The seasoning had to be good – sometimes I needed a pinch of sugar as well as salt and pepper – because all simple dishes need this kind of attention and cans of tomatoes vary; some are more acidic than others, so you need to keep tasting. I would either whiz this in the blender or leave it chunky. Then I discovered Marcella Hazan’s most famous tomato sauce. See page 82 for the recipe – it is near miraculous (and much praised by food lovers). There’s no chopping

– the onion is simply halved and left to simmer in the sauce, then removed at the end – and it’s made, somewhat counter-intuitively, with butter. This produces a sauce that is sweet, round and mellow. We associate all Mediterranean vegetables more with olive oil than butter, but I’ve been cooking aubergines with butter recently too and it’s a revelation (and reminds you how a small change can make a big difference). Butter produces a particular kind of richness. Keep the Hazan recipe up your sleeve. It’s not difficult to remember and it’s wonderful on pasta as well as gnocchi (see recipe, p82). I also purée it with double cream for a silky, luxurious potful of sauce to eat with spinach and ricotta gnocchi.

Tinned tomatoes aren’t just for sauces, though. I usually make tomato soup only in the summer, when there’s a glut of tomatoes, but a winter tomato soup – warmed with smoked paprika – is great when fresh tomatoes aren’t around (see recipe, p82). It’s important to find a brand of tinned tomatoes that you like. My son – who’s just learning to cook – has persuaded me to use Mutti San Marzano tomatoes. They’re about twice the price of the ones I used to buy but he’s right – they’re wonderful. It just shows you that no matter how long you’ve been cooking, a young cook can still teach you – even about simple things like tomato sauce.

Smoky tomato soup with preserved lemon & green olive salsa

This is smoky and warming, inspired by the food of Spain and Morocco. Save the salsa recipe too – it’s great on roast veg and with lamb, fish and griddled chicken

SERVES 4 PREP 25 mins COOK 20 mins EASY V ❄ soup only

1 tbsp soft butter

1 tbsp olive oil

1 large onion, chopped 1 celery stick, chopped 1 large carrot, chopped 2 bay leaves

2 garlic cloves, crushed 2 x 400g cans chopped tomatoes 500ml vegetable stock 1 tbsp sweet smoked paprika

1 tsp brown sugar

2 tsp sherry vinegar For the salsa

1 small garlic clove, very finely chopped

1 red chilli

1 tbsp chopped coriander leaves

125g pitted green olives, roughly chopped 4-5 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

1 tbsp white balsamic or sherry vinegar 1 preserved lemon or

1/2 if you are using homemade ones, rind cut into slivers (discard the flesh)

½-1 tsp preserved lemon brine, from the jar

1 Heat the butter and oil in a large saucepan on a medium heat, add the onion, celery and carrot and fry until tender, without turning golden, about 10 mins. Add the bay and garlic, and fry for a minute before adding the tomatoes and stock. Simmer for 10 mins, stirring occasionally.

2 Remove the bay leaves, and blend the soup in a liquidiser or with a stick blender until smooth. Season well and add the smoked paprika, sugar and vinegar to balance the soup with sweet, smokiness and a little acidity.

3 For the salsa, crush the garlic with a pinch of salt using a pestle and mortar. Halve and deseed the chilli and chop roughly. Add to the mortar with the coriander and olives and bash, gradually adding the oil and vinegar until you have a rough paste (it should be chunky). Mix in the preserved lemon, then stir in the brine from the jar to taste.

GOOD TO KNOW 2 of 5-a-day

PER SERVING 288 kcals • fat 21g • saturates 5g • carbs 17g • sugars 15g • fibre 7g • protein 4g • salt 1.3g

Gnocchi alla romana with tomato sauce

One of my favourite dishes, you can eat this with beef ragu as well as a simple tomato sauce. The sauce here is from Marcella Hazan and it’s rich, buttery and soothing. And you don’t even need to chop an onion.

SERVES 6 PREP 15 mins plus 1 hr chilling COOK 1 hr MORE EFFORT V

1.2 litres milk

250g fine semolina 115g butter, cubed, plus extra for the dish 125g grated parmesan or vegetarian alternative, plus extra to serve

3 egg yolks

For the sauce

2 x 400g cans plum tomatoes, drained and roughly chopped 75g butter

1 onion, peeled and halved

1 Put the milk in a large saucepan with a pinch of salt and heat until you can see steam rising from it. Whisking all the time, sprinkle in the semolina in a slow and steady stream. The mixture will thicken and become hard to whisk. When all the semolina is in, lower the heat to medium-low and start to beat the mixture with a wooden spoon. Cook until it starts to leave the sides of the saucepan and is very thick. Take the pan off the heat. Stir in half the butter and all the cheese until they are completely incorporated, then add the egg yolks one at a time, stirring until they are mixed in too. Taste the mixture for seasoning.

2 Spread the mixture out in a medium (about 30 x 20cm) baking tin to the thickness of about 1.5 cm, trying to make it as smooth as possible. Cover and when cool, put in the fridge to firm up – it will take about 45 mins-1 hr.

3 For the sauce, tip everything into a saucepan and season well. Simmer gently for 45 mins, stirring every so often. Heat oven to 220C/200C fan/gas 7.

4 Butter a gratin dish or baking dish (about 30cm wide). Using a pastry cutter or the rim of a glass, cut out rounds of the gnocchi mixture about 4cm across and lay them, slightly overlapping, in the dish. Melt the rest of the butter and pour it over the top, then scatter a generous amount of parmesan on top. Bake in the oven for about 25-30 mins or until the gnocchi are sizzling on top and golden.

5 Take the onion out of the tomato sauce, check the sauce for seasoning and serve with the gnocchi.

GOOD TO KNOW calcium • 1 of 5-a-day

PER SERVING 629 kcals • fat 40g • saturates 25g • carbs 45g • sugars 14g • fibre 2g • protein 20g • salt 1.1g

Hot chicken with sausages, tomatoes & peppers

Chicken thighs can vary a lot in size (even when they’re from the same packet). Try to use similar sizes so they cook evenly. Buy good Italian sausages if you can, the ones flavoured with chilli and fennel.

SERVES 4 PREP 10 mins COOK 1 hr EASY

1 tbsp olive oil

8 good-sized skin-on chicken thighs 4 (about 400g) spicy sausages 2-3 roasted roast peppers from a jar, depending on their size (Peppadew are good in this)

2 red onions, halved and cut into crescent moon-shaped slices 400g can cherry tomatoes

1 tsp chilli flakes

8 garlic cloves, grated to a purée

2 tbsp sherry vinegar

4 rosemary sprigs, leaves picked from 1, the others left whole

125ml chicken stock

1 Heat oven to 200C/180C fan/ gas 6. Heat half the oil in a big shallow casserole dish in which the thighs can lie in a single layer – one

30cm across is ideal, if you use a bigger dish the sauce may evaporate.

Quickly brown the chicken on both sides

– you don’t want to cook the chicken through, just get some colour on it – then remove from the pan. Do the same with the sausages in the remaining oil, colouring them all over. Cut the sausages on the diagonal into three or four pieces. Drain the peppers of their brine and cut into broad strips.

2 Add the onions and tomatoes to the dish or roasting tin with the chilli, garlic, seasoning, sherry vinegar, rosemary and sausages. Heat the stock and add that too. Mix everything together. Arrange so that the chicken is on top. Bake in the oven for 30 mins, stirring the ‘sauce’ that forms around the vegetables halfway through.

3 When 30 mins is up, add the peppers and cook for another 10 mins. The chicken should be cooked through with a thick sauce around it. Serve with rice pilaf, little potatoes that you’ve roasted in olive oil or mashed potato

(mash or rice with a little saffron in it would be lovely).

GOOD TO KNOW 2 of 5-a-day

PER SERVING 587 kcals • fat 38g • saturates 12g • carbs 20g • sugars 10g • fibre 6g • protein 39g • salt 1.5g