I have recently been in contact, quite often to a lovely woman named Julie Woolley who is the Secretary of The British Tomato Growers Association.
We were sending emails over about certain topics surrounding believe it or not, tomatoes! When Julie then Suggested to myself about a certain type of tomato that I had never heard of. You readers out there may have, but I hadn’t and so suddenly I was excited about this little tomato that was compared to the piccolo that I had certainly heard of and tried. This little Gem is called “The Sophie Jane”.
Julie then began to tell me that this juicy little tomato was grown in Sussex and by a man named Chris Wall AND was sold in Sainsbury’s! Even better! I was thinking to myself, could I get hold of this? , thus being in Leicester? So that weekend the first task was to find these little gems!
As My Partner and I scanned the Fruit and Vegetable aisles of Sainsburys, I hear from my Partner in the distance, “its here! and its the last one!” (A smile appeared on my face like a child in a sweet shop!) Now you do pay a little more for these but every so often we have to have treats like this, especially being British produce! And trust me, If you are a tomato fan of eating, growing or both? such as me, you will experience the burst of lovely sweet pips spraying out of your mouth as you try this little lovely, as My parnter and I did, tasting them on their own. Corny as it sounds we then did that “look” (with the eyes) Hmmmm Lush! And then suddenly as with most “Foodies”, Chefs, Cooks, you get this burst of Brain energy that ultimately wonders what you can come up with?…
I Had done the first part of trying it on its own. I then thought of slightly roasting the tomato as that will give an intense flavour of what it’s about.
It was a warm Sunday afternoon and I decided to make a tart, potato salad and have the roasted tomatoes with it. keeping it simple first. The Tart I have to admit wasn’t my best of Tarts but the “Sophie Janes” went very well with it. I felt like I was on a picnic 🙂
The second time I used these tomatoes, I again tried to keep things simple as I didn’t want to spoil this sweet delicate but yet amazing flavour… So I love creating pasta dishes and I LOVE seafood. So I thought I’d combine the two for a quick meal for myself that evening. Unfortunatley I had no white wine, Damn! But I plodded on with the recipe and used lemon juice instead and turned out great! Really fresh and vibrant. These are always the best recipes, when you least expect its going to be great when it’s so simple!
Spaghetti with King prawns and “Sophie Jane” Tomatoes.
Just to mention, I won’t be too specific on amounts as it was just for one. But any questions, please contact me 🙂
Recipe:
Spaghetti
King Prawns (cooked) However many you want!
Chopped Garlic (as fine as you can) a small clove
2 Chopped Spring Onions
Red chilli (Half a cm’s worth) fine diced
Fish stock or veg stock or even chicken stock just
go easy on it. (for one person if a cube, use no
more than 1/4 of it.(about 200ml water with it.
Cracked Black pepper
Basil, Parsley , Lemon juice and Garlic micro
chives to serve also with some lemon.
This is a simple recipe but with a very tasty outcome 🙂
Fry off the onion, garlic and chilli, add some lemon juice, then add the stock ( about 250 ml of it ) reduce down, then add the tomatoes, cooked spaghetti, king prawns, and when almost cooked add the herbs and serve with grated parmesan, garlic chives and a squirt of lemon! If you feel you want to add salt then you can when you try at the end.
ChezJ9 