Sometimes you really can’t help but scratch your head at what to cook… call it the proverbial Hamlet in the Kitchen playing out his culinary vexation: what to eat and what not to eat, that is the question–which includes you frenetically poring through mentally stored-up recipes from your tired “Mom-mory drive” while struggling with a theatrically-waning willpower to execute them.

Other times however, you just know. It clicks immediately and you’re filled with clarity, vision and gut-sized determination. The ingredients just sing their lines and you know exactly how to cast them in character.

So the story goes that I found myself mid-smack in tomato season with 14-16 tomatoes going for only 60cents at the local grocers. It was a no brainer: it made sense to make my own tomato pasta sauce, instead of hacking it with the usual canned tomatoes or bottled paste. Never mind the little extra work. These tomatoes deserved their own soliloquies and I was determined to take them to stardom.

Stars they were: the natural sweetness in the fresh tomatoes really trumped the sometimes overly sourish store-bought pastes, making the natural tang and sweet complement the savoury and herby chicken and bacon bits like a midsummer night’s dream:)

Tomato Sauce

Tomato Sauce

What you need:
2 tbsp olive oil
10 medium tomatoes
2 tbsp wine
1 yellow onion chopped
5 garlic cloves chopped
250g chicken breast chopped
100g of bacon (prefried and chopped)
Pinch of Herbs (cayenne pepper, Rosemary, red pepper flakes)
Parmesan Cheese

 

Tomato Spaghetti

Tomato Spaghetti

Here’s how:
Feeds 6-8
1. Wash 10 medium tomatoes and carve an “x” at the base of the tomato with your knife. Put in pot with water and boil for about 5minutes till skin comes off easily. Rinse in cold water to stop the cooking.

2. Marinade chicken with a little bit of oil, garlic powder, salt, pepper and pinch of herbs for 15minutes.

3. In a saucepan, fry the onion and garlic in the olive oil till aromatic. Add in the bacon to render some oil then the chicken to fry. When almost done,add in a splash of wine to deglaze the pan. While it is simmering, add in your peeled tomatoes and let the heat and with your slotted spoon break it down to a saucy texture. Serve with spaghetti and a generous topping of parmesan cheese.