Tomatoes Raymond Blanc's Kitchen Secrets

Renowned chef Raymond Blanc has inspired the world with his cooking.

It's about celebrating that gorgeous, glorious food and sharing a special moment with your loved one.

Now he's opening his kitchen and sharing his secrets.

I made all the mistakes which could be made, so you don't have to make them yourself.

-Showing, with a little effort...

-This is so, so beautiful.

..anyone can bring some joy to the dinner table.

Even the most complicated dish is not impossible to make.

On Kitchen Secrets, Raymond shares his favourite tomato recipes.

-It's so simple.

-With his mother's quick and easy salad.

-Voila.

-A fresh and light tomato essence risotto.

You can see that creaminess.

A simple supper of stuffed tomatoes.

Aah-ha-ha!

And finally, a celebration of the tomato in the most delicate of dishes.

They are so simple to translate into wonderful cooking.

They are amazing.

Voila, bon appetit!

Raymond's working kitchen in Oxfordshire is where his dishes come to life.

S'il vous plait! Can somebody always here, OK, you guys?

-Always here, stand up here...

-Yeah.

OK, to watch, can we have the same bowls and give me ten of those, OK, so we have plenty, voila. OK?

I've worked with Adam for now six years. Six years, Adam?

I found a yellow, yellow Picardy.

Every tomato has its place in a different recipe.

This tomato is a Marmande and a very fat Marmande, the best of its kind.

The Marmande tomato is used in one of Raymond's favourite childhood dishes.

Maman Blanc's tomato salad.

Maman Blanc would turn it out every Sunday

or sometimes, twice or three times a week, it took her

exactly five minutes to do, I would run in the garden, pick out the tomatoes, they were not supermarket

tomatoes, they were all ugly, you know, in some way, all misshapen, but my God, how they tasted.

So not too fine, OK, nice thickness, nice texture,

doing too thin, you feel frustrated you don't bite into it.

Look at that colour, it's absolutely amazing.

Can see all that juice.

Remember that cooking, it's a simple, creative process

which is so rewarding, and it's also an act of love, I simply look at it as an act of love.

My family, my friends, even when I cook with my team, that's a culture we create, it's an act of love.

Dressing is so simple.

OK, you don't need to be called Raymond Blanc to do this.

Voila. We have a bit of shallot, that's plenty. Bit of mustard.

The way Maman does it, she puts everything together with the mustard.

A bit of garlic, the French, we cannot help it, why not?

Got me, oh, it got me! It really got me right in the eye. Very, very fine.

Like that.

Lovely.

Very lovely. It's a rapeseed oil, it's a beautiful, neutral flavour,

and then she would pour vinegar. Hot water, Adam, please.

OK, tres bien, merci.

To help blend your dressing, add hot water at the end.

OK, and look,

suddenly we are getting this wonderfully silky dressing.

All that salt, vinegar will start almost curing the tomatoes, softening the cells.

Voila, come on, you.

The salad is topped off with chopped parsley, red onion and basil.

Voila, bon appetit.

There are more than 10,000 known varieties of tomatoes worldwide.

Very, very French, coeur de boeuf - ox heart - are fantastic.

Each variety of tomato has a different proportion

of flesh to seeds, giving it a particular purpose in the kitchen.

So let's have a look at that tomato.

That is why this tomato is for sauce.

Very little pips, very little juice, mostly flesh, that's perfect for tomato sauce.

-Yeah.

-That's why all over the world, it is used like this in Italy,

all the guys who know their tomato would do a sauce with this one.

Inspired by the juice of Maman's salad...

It's so simple, and so completely lovely.

..Raymond's next dish is risotto, made with tomato essence.

When I became a cook,

I wanted to extract the jus, but in a large volume.

It took so many months of painful work,

and eventually, I said, "That's it, bingo, done."

Creating, instead of using a chicken stock or other,

you are using the essence to create the whitest tomato essence risotto.

I'm going to break down, crush my tomatoes.

Every year, Raymond grows and trials up to 40 varieties of tomato.

He's using a variety of cherry tomato to make his essence.

Lovely balance of flesh, sweetness, acidity, but it's all flavourful, it's the most perfumed, you know?

I want to crush them, OK, but not puree them.

After pulsing the tomatoes, make a marinade.

Chopping celery...

A bit of celery, that much, no more.

..garlic...

-..shallot...

-They never end!

..and fennel.

So that's plenty, OK.

This is added to the crushed tomatoes along with some herbs.

A little basil.

Where is my thyme? Thyme, where are you hiding?

Here we are, voila, that's plenty.

It's just layers and layers and layers of flavours.

First I want to have my tomato experience,

then, "Oh, what was that? Oh, I feel a celery.

"And then I feel a bit of Worcestershire,

"a nice little bit of spicing, and then at the end when I finish, a little touch of bitterness."

A dash of Angostura. Voila.

Very little of... a little Tabasco.

Mix well.

Then put it in the fridge to let the flavours infuse.

Trust me, you can make this essence.

It may seem very complicated,

but it's well worth doing, because the flavours are absolutely amazing.

And this one, we have marinated it six hours ago, and it is ready now.

Smell, looks...

lovely smell.

Next, take a clean sheet.

It's the flag of surrender! Maybe.

Just wet it, voila, now it's drained, and I place it in here.

It will become a perfectly gold liquid, and will capture the heart of that tomato.

Raymond has been producing tomato essence in this way for 20 years.

-Adam, can you give me a quick hand, please?

-It's the basis of many of his most famous recipes.

Tres bien. See, all that jus,

all the pigmentation wonderfully golden.

Aah-ha-ha!

We're going to lose...

Yeah, that's... perfect.

It's a very funny contraception in a way... Contraception? No! No, contraption.

No, as a cook you always, you know, sometimes have to get on with it and find some solution.

To capture as much essence as possible, Raymond hangs the tomatoes overnight.

You mustn't press the bag, I know you would feel very... to go faster, OK,

you feel very tempted to take it by the throat and press, but you don't want that,

because you will get all the reddish colour, that's quite bitter.

The jus here is so clear, it's so distilled, so pure.

You see, drip, drip, drip, drip, that's why you've got to be a bit patient,

you have to wait a little bit, but it's worth it.

The most extraordinary extraction of the tomato is the essence, OK,

and that will be the best stock for the risotto.

Adam, please, I don't like to do that with a... Please, a proper spoon, give me a spoon, mon petit.

OK. Oh, God.

We start very much the traditional way, of course, sweeten our onion.

I'm going to put a tiny bit of garlic. Smell, smell, all the time,

these wonderful things taking over your cuisine, that's what it's all about.

OK, tres bien. Now I've got my rice,

Carnaroli rice, and I've got 200 grams here and I'm pouring it in here, OK.

Carnaroli is a widely available risotto rice which gives a creamy finish.

Don't forget to season your risotto! One... two.

Raymond adds butternut squash,

but instead of meat stock, he uses the tomato essence and hot water.

This creates a light, clean flavour and a clear, white risotto.

Now we're going to really depart from tradition, because I've found a little technique which I'm sure

my Italian friends will not like, but which works extremely well, because I'm not going to stir it.

Normally risotto is stirred continually to prevent the rice

from sticking and to release starch, but Raymond leaves his rice to cook untouched.

And I bring it exactly to the temperature I want,

and the temperature I want, you can actually see,

it's one tiny little bubble, rising on the side of that pan,

and then the water will not boil and the rice will start absorbing all this wonderful essence of tomato.

It will take about 15 minutes.

Have a stroll in the garden, you know, nice glass of wine,

and just relax a little bit, rather than sweating at the stove, stirring your risotto.

And now we're going to work the starch.

We're going to stir it away, we're going to extract all of the starches

which are going to give that wonderful creaminess, OK.

So I add my courgettes,

bit of fennel, my coriander seeds.

The rice still is... some of it is still uncooked, OK, nearly,

that takes exactly five minutes to finish off.

So instead of sweating 20 minutes, you only sweat five minutes.

Tres bien.

Look at that beautiful white rice, full of tomato fragrance,

now your rice is fluffing up, the starch is leaking out beautifully, you can see that creaminess.

Voila, that's nearly ready.

-To finish, add mascarpone cheese, peas and parmesan.

-Voila.

Lovely.

A beautifully creamy risotto, falling off the spoon perfectly.

-Dress the dish with roasted tomatoes, a drop more essence...

-Voila, bon appetit.

..and a sprig of fresh herbs.

The tomato season in Great Britain runs from March to November.

When you go to the supermarket,

that's what you get, OK, and they are all red, they're already formed and they're all perfect.

To meet all-year-round demand, tomatoes are imported and grown hydroponically,

where plants are fed nutrient solutions instead of getting them from soil.

So all these tomatoes are grown in huge, huge spaces

where the air is controlled, the humidity's controlled, the heat is controlled, OK.

No disease, but very cleverly done.

So is it good, is it bad? It certainly works.

The heart of tomato growing country.

Preston, Lancashire.

At one of the UK's largest hydroponic tomato nurseries,

Raymond's meeting development executive Bernard Sparks,

who has worked in the tomato industry for over 30 years.

Nice to see your tomato kingdom here, and my God, what a kingdom!

Thousands and thousands and thousands of tomato plants.

The nursery produces 150 million fruits a year from 15 varieties.

You may treat me as an old-fashioned boy,

I can assure you, to me, still, I love the idea of a fruit,

of a vegetable or a herb, growing into earth.

My father made me taste earth at the age of seven,

not just smell it, look at it, I tasted it,

so are you telling me that your system is actually better than growing them on earth?

I'm going to prove to you that our hydroponically grown tomatoes are as good

across the whole year as tomatoes grown in the soil,

and consistency and continuity is hugely important to us.

-I stand to be counted.

-Let's have a look, let's have a look.

These vines are so beautifully arranged.

-At the end of the season, we are talking about a 12 to 14 metre long length of stem...

-Wow, wow.

..and that will have something like 28 to 30 trusses of tomatoes on the plant.

I've read in your book, Raymond, that your mother used to ripen tomatoes on the windowsill.

-On the windowsill, yeah.

-Outrageous!

-Really?

-Out.. out..

-I didn't expect you to say that to my mum!

You'll be in trouble now, you tell her yourself.

I need her telephone number, I must come and visit.

-But you've not eaten one yet? Come on.

-I'm going to now.

-You must.

OK, I'll take that top here.

It's a very, very good tomato, and I will not say it

if it wasn't, OK, to please you, that's a very good tomato.

-I didn't say it was the best tomato!

-I noticed.

But it's a very good tomato.

What we're doing is exactly the same as in the soil except we haven't got

the worms, we haven't got all the microbes.

-We can argue about this till the cows come home...

-We can and I would!

-Who's going to have the last one?

-Not me.

You're a typical Englishman, you're a typical Englishman, never the last one... no problem.

To match the taste benefits soil brings to the fruit,

new growing methods are being developed by chief tomato grower Andy Rowe.

-I'd like to show you the woodchip.

-Oh, yes, that eco, what do you call it?

-Eco fibre.

Andy's developed a pioneering system using the by-product from sawmills as a soil replacement.

Oh, yes, that's much better,

oh, yes. Look at that.

That smells of lime, you can... you can smell it.

Lovely, it's not rotten, it's alive, it's earth which is alive.

So you are telling me that that earth which you have created, effectively, is as good as my mum's earth,

where the tomato gets its nutrients deep in the soil?

Yes, I am, I am. It's as good as.

Let's taste it, that's a perfect tomato,

and the balance will be just right, you can actually see how it tastes.

Thank you very much.

-Have one on me.

-Thank you.

I cannot disassociate food from the soil, I can't, I simply can't, but to see that earth, that fabric

of earth where you have fungi with organism, you got all those

things moving around, that is exciting.

Have you got a recipe for the tomato sauce?

A quick family meal using beef tomatoes is Raymond's next dish.

We are going to do a very simple dish, stuffed tomato which is really part of very much of the

French repertoire because it's so delicious and it's so simple.

They're ready to be stuffed, begging to be stuffed.

I'm going to sit them up very nicely just so they don't wobble and

roll over like little Humpty Dumpties.

So just nicely scoop it out.

So I'm going to leave as much flesh as possible inside.

Tres bien.

I've got my ingredients here, minced pork,

I've got fresh breadcrumbs - not dried, fresh breadcrumbs -

to help the meat not to be so tough.

Add egg yolk, parsley, tarragon,

garlic and shallot.

It's a very French thing, garlic, shallots, parsley, hint of tarragon, cos that's a classic.

Olive oil...

Voila.

..and grated cheese.

A bit of Comte cheese, because I can't help it, I come from that region.

And season.

Can you give me, the next time, a big giant mill pepper, please?

Always taste, even raw pork, well, the chef of the house,

it's a duty, OK, I cook at home, I do not do that.

Your stuffing just inside.

Tres bien. So it's very much simple family meal, could do

wonderful hamburgers as well, goes back to years, I mean, many years.

Just slide them into the oven,

180 pre-heated for about 20 minutes, 25 minutes, according how big they are.

-Adam?

-Yes?

-Can you bring me some basil, please? Couple of leaves.

-Can you get me some basil leaves?

-Yes.

To accompany the dish,

tomato sauce made from stewed plum tomatoes, onions, garlic...

-Voila.

-..and a handful of basil.

Personally, I like a lot.

That has cooked beautifully...

Oh-oh, come on,

oops, it's stuck away, come on, come on. Good.

-Add the sauce...

-Parsley, please.

..and roughly chopped parsley.

Of course, you can use chive,

if you just simply...

Simple, home cooked.

Obviously you can change the mincemeat by fish, by risotto, any bits you have

left in your fridge, practically, almost, you can put it inside that tomato,

and it's simple enough to make.

Raymond's kitchen garden is his pride and joy.

It holds over a hundred varieties of herbs and spices.

Wonderful flavour, so aniseed, so wonderfully sweet.

For his final dish, Raymond's looking for a mixture of delicate herbs, like these garlic flowers.

You only use the seed part of the flowers, very powerful as well, that will go into a little jelly.

Cooking for the last 35 years, Raymond's still passionate about

creating new dishes with his favourite ingredients.

When you make something lovely for friends or family, it's always that little bit more effort,

and it's rewarding for them as much as it is for you.

He's created a new recipe - a celebration of the simple tomato.

Using tomato essence as his base ingredient, it's five dishes in one.

A simple salad sits alongside a granita,

tomato jelly, consomme and a sorbet.

First, the tomato jelly.

So with these wonderful little textures here, tomatoes and all, I'm going to make my jelly, OK.

So I take about 200 gram,

I'm going to add only a half leaf of gelatine, OK, into a little bit of essence of tomato.

When the gelatine's melted, pour into cold tomato essence and leave to thicken.

Tres bien.

Right, let's move that onto... Meanwhile, what I can do is to start

picking up all my little flowers, harvesting my flowers.

Bringing the tomato jelly to life, Raymond's garden herbs.

They are so delicate, they're so beautiful.

Garlic flowers, fennel, coriander seeds and basil.

Adam is beheading the little baby basilic - guillotine!

And the pips of colourful tomatoes.

It is so incredibly beautiful.

Look at that. It's like a yellow strawberry.

Can you freeze that as well? Freeze it so it's nice and cold.

Tres bien. So now, the cold is acting on the jelly, and the gelatine starts to thicken.

I want it to acquire texture so the solids don't sink in the bottom,

but remain as exactly where I want them to be.

I'm in charge, not them.

Voila. Then I'm going to play with it, OK.

When I think of tomatoes, I think of so many images,

piled up, jumbled up, all sorts of ideas of flavours, textures...

So sprinkle your little herby things.

You can make it as complicated or as simple as you want to.

Please, take a tray, mon petit, take a tray.

Oh, come on!

OK, I'll give them to you. Merci.

The tomato and herb jelly takes an hour in the fridge to set.

Next, a tomato salad.

I've filled those tomatoes, so now I'm using

the flesh to make a tomato salad.

Marinated in shallots, basil, olive oil,

and a dash of white wine vinegar.

There is nothing really clever, it just celebrate a particular produce.

OK, so now...

it looks absolutely beautiful, does it taste as it looks?

Lovely.

No, a rectangular plate which I asked to be put in the freezer so I can put the jelly on it, please.

Voila. Can we have a few more plates like that ready, please?

Three parts of the dish are ready.

Tomato jelly, the consomme of pure tomato essence...

Lovely gold liquid.

..and the tomato salad.

A little bit of Mozzarella. Just break it up in little pieces like that.

Much nicer.

Both of the final elements are made from tomato essence, which has been frozen.

So we, we have the same, OK, two essences which are ready,

one is ready to be turned into a sorbet, the other one grated into a granita, cos that's what we have.

-And on.

-To make the sorbet, you can put tomato essence into an ice cream maker.

See, all that is powdered snow, we just need to compact

a beautiful sorbet, look.

Come on, little one.

And a Granita.

We just simply grate the ice, totally different texture, you know, just like big, lovely crystal.

A granita is a frozen dessert, popular in Italy.

It has a crystallised texture made by scraping or shaving frozen fruit juice.

Very simple, lovely, well, complicated simplicity.

The theme, there's five dishes within one, so of course,

it's quite complex, quite difficult, but you can take any of those dishes, you can easily translate it into your

own home for your friends and for your family.

How many millions of dish have been made with a single tomato,

and there are still millions of other dishes to be discovered.

Always be curious, if you lose the curiosity, you die a little and your food dies a little.

If you were to be told that there would be no tomatoes ever,

I think that the whole heart of the world would beat a little bit slower. What a shame.

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