Relax In Your Balcony While Munching On Chips And Sun-Dried Tomato Dip!
There are days when you want to have sun-dried tomato dip with your chips and you go to the deli section of the supermarket, while you are holding that jar of sun-dried tomatoes, have you ever wondered how they “sun-dry” them?
Sund-dried tomatoes are a staple of Southern Italian cuisine. It is a typical delicacy, especially in Sicily. And traditionally, the tomatoes are handpicked, dried in the Sicilian sun for three full days (and not ovens as those commercial versions are), and preserved in oil with basil and a bit of vinegar.
Life in Sicily, farming, and production are productive. The constant value is day to day.
Along with the presence of an active volcano, its constant (if minor) volatility doesn’t just affect the taste of things grown there, but what Sicilians do with their produce.
The warm sun in a bright blue sky, streaming onto the terraced yard, where millions of slices of tomatoes lay at the base of Mount Etna in Sicily is mind-blowing to see.
Simply put, foods are pickled to preserve them. However, this process also changes their taste and texture in interesting, yummy ways. And the most common way to pickle food is by using vinegar, like what I did with this pickled carrot recipe, or using brine.
Yes, Let’s Do This!
I decided to give this sun-dried tomato dip recipe a go, as not all that you can buy commercially are made with mostly natural ingredients and nothing beats making your own. My plan is to play with this recipe as honestly, I am not sure where I can go with this. I don’t want it to have a strong garlic and basil flavour – I simply want it to be really shining the tomato flavour. But how is that possible? By not using sun-dried tomatoes that are showered in oil like those jarred ones that you can buy in the supermarket, that’s why I used dried sliced tomatoes – dehydrated ones with no oil – and they are just intensely delicious.
And the result, is a baseline dip that you can adjust according to your preference. If you want it a bit hot, add chili in there. If you want it to be sweeter, go ahead!
Sun-Dried Tomato Recipe!
~INGREDIENTS~
- A handful of basil, ripped
- 250g sun-dried tomato
- 1 garlic clove
- Water
- Olive oil
- Salt and pepper, to taste
- A dash of #EASEANDFLOW
~METHOD~
Add sun-dried tomato, half of the garlic (add more if you like garlic), basil, salt, and pepper to the food processor.
Process until crumble.
Taste and adjust the flavour.
Add olive oil and mix.
Prepare some chips and veggie sticks to serve with it.
***
Freezer-friendly: No
R, DF, RSF, V
If you want more of me, I’m in a book called Plant-Based Love Stories. It is my cookbook and it’s amazing with recipes using ingredients as close to what nature intended it to be with low human interference where we are in charge of things.
Comment down on my YouTube channel what your take is on this recipe and how it went for you. I’ll be waiting!
With love from my kitchen to yours,
Chef Cynthia Louise xx
