Making some adjustments to ingredients!

Asked on 6 Apr 2020 by ADJB

Hi Lindsey! Having so much time at home now has given me the time to explore the site and I love it. I, like so many have been struggling to get some ingredients at the moment so I wondered if I could rum a couple of thoughts past you. Can I use fresh tomatoes where it says tinned? Tinned tomatoes seem to be very rare at the moment! And I’ve got some lamb neck fillet in the freezer and I’d like to make the Irish stew with crusted dumplings but I couldn’t get any pear barley, so can I make it without! Hope your all doing well. You’re certainly making it a bit easier for us cooking at home.
A x

Lindsey, Food Editor replied

Hello A,

Yes, you can use fresh tomatoes. How you use them will depend on the recipe.

You can make a fresh tomato sauce and use that as a base…

Classic Fresh Tomato Sauce

Or you can skin, deseed and chop the tomatoes…

How to Skin and De-seed Tomatoes

Or sometimes you can simple chop the tomatoes and keep all the seeds and skin in. We sometimes make the classic fresh tomato sauce like this and then whiz it up to a puree and use it like that.

For the Irish Stew, absolutely you can make it without the pearl barley. The liquid will be thinner but you can either leave it as is or thicken it with flour and butter mix like we do in Coq au Vin.

Coq au Vin

Best wishes

Lindsey

ADJB replied

Hi Lindsey, thank you so much, that’s really going to help me and probably lots of other members all over the country too!! The cookery school is great. So clear and uncluttered - beautifully done. All best wishes Ax