Cafe Liz

Cherry tomatoes and arugula in balsamic cream sauce

I envisioned this as a sort of hot salad. In fact, many of the ingredients are the same — tomatoes, arugula, onions, balsamic vinegar. They just happen to be in a warm cream sauce.

I’m not entirely sure what this dish does best — I made it with the original intent that it be a sort of hot sandwich, but I poured too much of the gravy on top and it got a little messy. So then I figured it’d be nice served in a bowl, alongside crusty bread. In the end, I finished it on top of pasta. So, I guess you could just call it versatile.

Obviously, you don’t need to include soy protein if you don’t want to — and the quantity listed below is gives you a pretty heavy soy presence. However, it does make this a little more filling and nutritious, and adds a nice bit of density.

800 g tomatoes
50 g dry soy protein
80 g onion (1 medium-sized)
40 g arugula (a big handful)
1/2 T dark brown sugar
1/2 c cream
1 T balsamic vinegar
1/2-1 T butter
1/2 t flour
salt
oil

Put the soy protein in water to soak.

Start by caramelizing the onions: Slice them into thin slivers, and fry them in the butter. Once they start to become translucent, add the brown sugar. Mix, let the sugar caramelize a bit, and then set the onions aside in a bowl

Now, put the soy protein into the pot. Add some oil, and start heating. Pour in the cream and the balsamic vinegar, plus the flour so that the gravy will thicken a bit. Once the gravy is simmering and beginning to thicken, add the tomatoes, sliced in half — by adding them this late, they’ll become hot but they won’t become so well cooked that they fall apart.

Remove the pot from the flame, and add the arugula, long stems removed and chopped into bite-size pieces, right before serving. The dish should still be hot enough at this point that the arugula wilts.

Serve topped with onions, in a bowl alongside bread for dipping, inside a sandwich or on top of pasta.

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