Tomato-Rhubarb Soup

There are plenty of vegetables and fruits out there that would make the perfect combination, but they are just not in season in the same time. For example white asparagus is amazing with a blood orange hollandaise. Sometimes a fresh cucumber would just be the perfect ingredient that a dish needs, but no season yet, so it is not available from a local producer, at least not free range. I believe that products that are common in your area you should only buy when it is in season, it is worth to wait for local strawberries, asparagus and so on. Your reward is going to be an explosion of flavours. Of course not everything is automatically bad that comes from abroad. But it is good if you check if that veggie or fruit is in season in that particular country that time of the year. So you know that it has seen some sun and it is not from tunnel or whatever. Of course it is not that easy to resist, but I believe that it is really stupid and negligent to sell strawberries in February or watermelon already in April! Altough, I really care very much for the products that I use in my kitchen and I try to get everything from local producers, once in a while I can't resist. A juicy mango, artichokes or avocado happen to get into my shopping basket. But after all one shouldn't be too strict, because then we all can stop eating chocolate, drink coffee or even use pepper. These gorgeous tomatoes are from Sicliy and called Marmadino. They are in season from the middle of February until May. I simply love Sicily and everything that comes from there, so it was impossible to say no to these. They have a truly amazing flavour, just wow. No wonder that they were gone pretty fast among some buttered bread, so I used some tomato juice for the soup.

Ingredients:
600 ml tomato juice
200 g rhubarb
2 tablespoons rape seed oil
1 onion
10 g fresh ginger
1 clove garlic
50 g celeriac
4-5 tablespoon brown sugar
50 ml port wine
1 bay leaf
1-2 cloves
1 star anise
1/2 teaspoon coriander seeds
1 bunch of fresh basil
salt, pepper


Peel and dice the onion, garlic, ginger, celeriac and sautee in hot oil for a few minutes. Add sliced rhubarb and sugar and let it caramelise a little, then add port wine and reduce. Then add the tomato juice and the spices packed in a muslin. Cook for about 10-15 minutes, then remove the spices, puree and season. Then add the bunch of basil and leave it on the hot plate for 5 minutes, then remove. If the soup is too thick add some vegetable stock and some sugar if needed. Some frehsly grated orange zest give a nice kick to the soup.