When you bring this dish of vanilla-scented tomatoes to the table, people will ask you if you have just baked the dessert, as the sweet and spicy scent will have suddenly spread, as if by magic.

Ingredients for the vanilla tomato cream

• 1 kg of tomatoes
• 1 large onion
• 1 vanilla pod
• vegetable stock
• salt, pepper and extra virgin olive oil to taste

Wash the tomatoes, cut them open, and blanch them in water. After about 30 seconds put them in ice water and peel them.

Preparation of the vanilla tomato cream

Wash the tomatoes, cut them open, and blanch them in water. After about 30 seconds put them in ice water and peel them.

Cut them into pieces and set them aside.

Peel the onion, chop it up and fry it in a pan with a little extra virgin olive oil and some salt.

Then add the chopped tomatoes and a ladleful of vegetable stock.

Cook for about twenty minutes, add the seeds of the vanilla pod and turn off the heat.

Blend and season with salt and pepper.

Ingredients:

• 1 kg courgettes
• 50 g shallots
• 30 g extra-virgin olive oil
• salt to taste
• ground рерреr to taste
• vegetable stock

Preparation of the courgette and shallot cream

To prepare the courgette and shallot cream, start by washing the courgette’s well under running water. Now it is time to cut them lengthwise, removing the central seeds; cut them into more or less regular pieces.

Clean the shallot and chop it. Then brown it for about 10 minutes in a pan with the extra virgin olive oil. Add the courgettes in chunks.

Lightly brown and continue cooking, adding a ladleful of hot stock. Once ready, leave to cool completely.

Pour the cooked courgettes into a blender, pour in a ladleful of cooled stock, and blend, adding a couple of tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil in a drizzle.

Roasted nuts

Roasted nuts

• 1 handful of peeled hazelnuts
• 1 handful of walnuts

Toast the nuts in a pan and, before they get too dark, remove them from the pan and spread them out on absorbent kitchen paper.

Once cooled, chop them up roughly with a knife.

For serving

Help yourself to two round pastry rings (one larger and one smaller) and create the shape you want using the two creams. I created a wedge of the moon with the courgette cream but it could be a central disc, a square, etc.

Garnish with chopped roasted hazelnuts and walnuts.

Vanilla tomato cream and courgette and shallot cream with roasted nuts

Matteo Bellini

“I graduated from the International Academy of Italian Cuisine (ALMA) of Gualtiero Marchesi in Colorno (PR) a few years ago.

In these more than twenty years of love for cooking, I have worked in many different realities: from pubs to starred kitchens, from chains to traditional restaurants, from catering to private events, giving value to every experience carried out with passion in the kitchen. I then became a cookery teacher for numerous Italian institutes, holding courses also for the Veneto Region, on cruise ships, and in many clubs and private cookery schools.

A pioneer of Personal Chefs in Italy, I am known as CuocoPersonale (Personal Cooking Trainer) and owner of the “Chef del Benessere” (Wellbeing Chef) project.

Today I am a father, a Chef, a cooking trainer, a consultant, and a writer “of taste.”

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