Passata Please

Passata Day or "Tomato Day" as it is known by Italians around the world is when tomatoes are at their most abundant and families and friends get together to make passata to last them until the next tomato season.  Every Italian family has their own recipe and of course their own recipe is the true and only way to make passata.....

Passata, simply tomatoes and a basil leaf in a bottle

I recently attending a Passata Making class, run by Maria from the Bulleen Art and Garden Centre.  Maria is striving to keep this tradition alive in her family and pass it on to others that may have let the tradition lapse, or want to start the tradition themselves. She has her husband Ciro and daughter Sophie and son Andrew here to help us.

12 Boxes of Roma Tomatoes waiting to be cored, cooked and bottled.

To start with you get a box of Roma Tomatoes, these are washed cored, and any rotten parts were removed so that they are ready to be blanched.

Some of us were faster than others and more experienced tomato corers!

Chiro is in charge of bringing the old copper cauldrons up to the boil to blanch the tomatoes.

Hundreds of tomatoes simmering away.....

He uses a fire to heat them rather than gas to get the water up to the boil quickly. You can do this at home in a small scale in a stock pot.  Once the tomatoes have been bought up to the boil they are boiled for 3-4 minutes and then drained.

Tomatoes are removed and drained of any excess water before they enter the extracting process

Now comes the fun part the "passing" of the tomatoes through a separator or fancy sieve.  Many Italian families own these machines, basically they separate the seed and peel away from the flesh.  You can do this through a sieve or a small scale sauce machine at home.

The "passing" of the tomatoes.. the literal translation of "Passata".

The cooked tomatoes go into the top of the machine and then are passed through two more times to ensure all the pulp is extracted, the sauce is then mixed to ensure an even consistency.

This is where it starts getting messy....

Meanwhile the jars are prepared and a single basil leaf is placed in the bottom of each jar before the sauce is added.

What surprised me most is that passata is basically just tomatoes passed trough a mechanical sieve, then preserved in a jar with a basil leaf, no salt, no acid, no sugar!

Next each of the jars are filled with the sauce and a lid is added.  

Traditionally old beer bottles were used to store the Passata in.... you could imagine the mess in filling these ones up!

Once the jars are filled they are put back into the the cauldrons for the preserving process to take place.

Over bottles are placed in the cauldrons for preserving

 The bottom of the cauldron is lined with old towels, then the bottles are stacked tightly on top.

The old towels are added so that the jars don't bump each other and crack!

Boiling water is added and then the jars are weighed down with bricks.  They are cooked for 30 minutes and then are left to cool until the next day.

The passata is ready to be used straight away.... it can be used by itself or added to make what ever takes your fancy.

Maria, whipping up a simple tomato pasta with the passata for lunch

For lunch we had a simple sauce of garlic, olive oil and basil, served on spaghetti with tomatoes, topped with parmigiana....Buono!

The passata was so delicate in flavour it was delicious.

Maria was a fantastic teacher and I would recommend this course to anyone who wants to learn how to make Passata and enjoys a hands on course.  She also takes some preserving classes and classes around sustainable gardening you can check out her website here.

Thanks to Maria, Ciro, Sophie and Andrew for making the day so enjoyable, I look forward to eating my 12 bottles of Passata over the next few months!

Crawl n Bite

Well it's not often that you eat at every single venue you have a drink in.... if only that was the case there would be a few less sore heads after a night out!

Last night I attended Crawl n Bite part of the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival, an event where you are ushered very orderly from place to place to crawl and bite!  This is the first year for this event which is happening in Fitzroy, St Kilda and the City.

We started at Easy Tiger at 6pm on the dot, they kicked off the evening promptly with the option of a cocktail called the "Mother Plum" or a Singa beer, followed quickly behind by the first small plate.

The night started with "The Mother Plum" Cocktail... Gin, Aloe, Umeshu & Soda

This was an aged rare wagu beef, served with coconut rice, a salad of coriander, red onion, finely shredded spinach, sliced lemongrass and a very zingy dressing that really brought the dish together.

Small Plate #1 great start to the evening

Next, we were ferried up the road to Huxtable.  We sauntered past Huxtaburger which smelt delicious and almost had the same amount of people queueing for burgers as we had on the crawl... mental note...try those burgers.

At Huxtable, we started off with a Medhurst Rose, which was served with a tuna sushami with a yuzo and tofu sauce with a seaweed on the side topped with tempura ginger and watercress.

Beautifully presented... check out the Tempura Ginger perfectly crunchy

This dish looked amazing and the flavours worked well with the Rose, but the flavour wasn't nearly as punchy as the previous bite.  We however, had no problems finishing our plates!

Emily was disappointed that the tempura ginger was missing on her plate!

Our last round was at Anada where we were greeted with a green pea gazpacho with smoked olive oil.

Pea gazpacho, with the smoked olive oil circling the top of the gazpacho

The gazpacho was my favourite dish of the night is had an amazing creamy texture with a bursting with freshness and flavour (I surprise myself not been a great fan of the humble pea!).

This was followed by a small taster of some Iberica ham and a glass of sherry to accompany the next plate.

Sherry line up

The final plate was a real treat.  It consisted of a small cut of pork bellie with fennel and smokey aubergine with a delicate crackling on the top.

Great mix of tapas, I would definitely go back for the pork!

Beside the pork was a small dish of beef cheek, slowly cooked in oloroso sherry. The beef was served with a fava bean mash and was so tender it melted in your mouth.

A very cute salad completed the meal, it was made up of gem lettuce salad with barberries (little red berries that look like pomegranates used to add a burst of tart flavour to a dish), chervil and a white balsamic dressing, gorgeous.

The Barberry...a small burst of tart flavour, known as one of "Natures Superfoods" if you believe the hype!

This was a great event, it was really well organised and fairly priced ($50 for three dishes plus a beverage at each place), if you want to check it out go to the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival website.

If you run out of time in the next two weeks why not do your own crawl and bite there are plenty of places in Fitzroy that serve small plates and a great way to try new places.

Thanks to Simon from Easy Tiger who was our tour leader, he made the event run smoothly and was a great host, I will be back to try out the rest of the menu!