That’s Rob Krawczyk – our own Ballydehob Michelin starred Chef and owner of Restaurant Chestnut here in Ballydehob. He’s showing us how to make soup? I’m in!

The occasion was a fundraiser for the marvellous West Cork Feel Good Festival – a festival that’s dedicated to experiential workshops that offer moments of exploration, discovery and connection. There are events taking place all over West Cork, and the underlying theme is that of good mental health and wellbeing for all of us. This one was in the fabulous Levis’s where so much of the heart of Ballydehob is nurtured. (See my post about their famous shop counter, here.)

Rob is genial and casual – no hint of Master-Cheffy uppityness and not a tweezer in sight. West Cork is a foodie paradise and there’s a mantra that local cooks like to use – fresh food, simply prepared. And this was a masterclass in exactly that. There were 4 ingredients – tomatoes, oil, garlic and salt. That’s it.

What did I learn that I didn’t know before? First, and most surprising to me – roast the tomatoes, vine and all! Roasting brings out the flavour, and apparently the vine itself also contains buckets of flavour too. Chuck in a couple of cloves of garlic – no need to peel or cut them up. He buys his tomatoes from Lisheen Greens – one of our local producers of vegetables.  

How about seasoning? Rob used two kinds of salt, coarse and fine, and a generous amount of each. He also told us it was important to season at the end as well. I asked him about pepper – every video I watch on the internet has copious amount of salt and pepper added, and the Master Chef guys are always bleating on about seasoning. I personally use pepper very sparingly and in very few recipes, so I was curious. Rob made my day when he told me he doesn’t often use pepper, and when he does he adds it at the end. 

I said that one of the ingredients was tomatoes, and that’s correct. But there were two kinds – one kind was the fresh tomatoes on the vine that Rob roasted, the other was – canned! It’s important, he said, to look for good quality canned tomatoes that have been peeled – unpeeled can leave unpleasant bits in the soup. This one is available in Fields of Skibbereen.

Once the tomatoes have roasted, the canned tomatoes are added, everything is mixed and cooked in a big pot, and then processed in a blender or food processor to chop up the vine stalks and the garlic. Finally, it’s all strained through a sieve, tasted, and a last seasoning added. 

To serve it, Rob showed us how to make a brown soda bread. His tip – handle it as little as possible, only as much as you need to, to get all the dry and wet ingredients to come together. 

Of course, in the best tradition of here’s one I made earlier there was a big pot of soup on the hob, and lots of little loaves of brown bread with herbed butter. 

Delicious!!!