HoChi's Tomato dishes

Submitted by HoChiWaWa

This was my Iron Chef 2 Tomato battle entry.

Method

I was excited to hear the theme ingrediant was tomatos, and quickly set out to find the finest ingrediants.

I decided I would present 3 dishes, a fresh pasta and 2 appetizers.

Sundried Tomato Pasta Alio Olio

Bruschetta Pomadora All'Amatriciana

Insalata Caprese

The pasta needs time to rest so we start there. Chop 1/3 a jar of sundried tomatos.

Mix them with 2 eggs and a tablespoon of water.

You will need about 2.5 cups of semolina flour, make a well in the center and add your egg mixture.

Mix together adding water or semolina as needed. Once it comes together like this.

Wrap it in plastic and rest it for 40 min to an hour.

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Meanwhile we start the insalata caprese.

Mix olive oil, garlic and basil in a small sauce pan, bring up to medium heat and turn it off.

Slice fresh mozzarella and put it in a dish, cover with the garlic oil after it cools, allow marinate while we move on.

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Now we can do some prep work on the bruschetta pomadora all'amatriciana.

Sadly i couldn't find any panchetta so I used bacon, but certianlly use the panchetta if you can. Anyway fry up strips.

Remove the bacon and dispose of some of the grease leaving a few tablespoons for the onions. Once the onions start browning add your garlic and sautee a bit more.

Remove the onion/garlic from the heat and place it in a bowl, then dice a tomato, in this case a rather homely and yummy looking very meaty yellow heirloom tomato.

This is ready to top your bruchetta anytime, but before we get to that we need to make the pasta.

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Cut your rested pasta dough into thirds and roll one section flat so you can feed it into your pasta machine.

It always looks crappy the first time through.

Just fold it over and run it again and repeat. After a few passes start cranking down the machine to make the pasta more and more thin.

Then you run it through your cutter and you have fresh pasta.

Throw it in a pot, it should be done in 5 min.

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Now back to the bruschetta, put the onion tomato mixture on toasted bread add the panchetta (bacon in this case) and broil for 5 min.

Now the bruschetta is done (as long as you remember to take it out in 5 min)

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You have a couple to slice your tomatos for your insalata caprese.

Place a slice of marinated mozzarella on each slice of tomato and drizzle with the marinade.

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Pull out your bruschetta and drain your pasta.

Heat up some olive oil and garlic in a pan.

Add pasta.

and grape/golden sweet tomatos and fresh basil and parsley.

Warm the tomatos through and serve

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Lets take a closeup of it from the standpoint of someone eating this fine meal

It was really tasty thats for sure and not that difficult. I hope you enjoyed this tomato battle, I sure did.