Now, about that tomato onion gravy.
my next-to-last quart of tomatoes
This is a simple sauce that, to my understanding, is often served with greens and some version of a cooked meal. In Mozambique, it’s xima (recipe below!), and in South Africa it’s pap, and then there are lots of other African variations on the theme, like sadza and ugali, etc.
Eucefe making last week’s xima.
But pairing tomato gravy with xima is only the starting point.
With tomato gravy in the fridge, you have the base for any number of fast, nourishing, flavorful meals.
- Instead of with xima, serve it over pasta or rice.
- Fry up a pound of ground beef with the onions for a meaty stew.
- Ladle it into a bowl and top with a boiled egg and a scoop of cottage cheese.
- Add cilantro, avocado, a scoop of beans, sour cream, and hominy.
- Eat it with buttered toast, or alongside grilled cheese, like a tomato chutney of sorts.
- Serve it next to grilled steak and mashed potatoes
- Pile high with greens — any kind! lots of them!
- Add a quart of broth, cubes of potato, and some cabbage or green beans — voila, soup!
Making the gravy, it feels like you’re gonna be disappointed. Just tomatoes and onions? No garlic? No special seasonings? No cream or meat or basil?
Persevere, my friends. Let it simmer for a bit, and then simmer it a little more. After 15 minutes, it transforms into something much greater than the sum of its parts — intensely flavorful, stew-like, almost jammy.
with cottage cheese and greens
I am an enormous fan of reheating a bowlful of gravy and then topping it with whatever I have in the fridge for a mood-boosting, vitamin-packed power lunch to beat all power lunches.
with cottage cheese and a fried egg
No scurvy for me!
Tomato Onion Gravy
Adapted from this post on Food.com.
1 large onion, halved and quartered length-wise and then sliced thinly
fat (olive oil, lard, bacon grease, or butter)
4 cups chopped canned tomatoes
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes teaspoon
1 teaspoon sugar, optional
salt and black pepper to taste
Saute the onion in a little fat until soft and tender, and only kissed with brown. Add the tomatoes, red pepper, and seasonings. Simmer over low heat for 15-20 minutes, uncovered, stirring occasionally.
***
Last fall, I wrote a story about Eucefe making xima for us. The voluteer agency that he works with published that story here, along with the recipe — or the recipe as I understood it back then.
Now that his English has improved, so has my understanding of how to make xima.
I made it the other night for supper (along with grilled steak, greens, and tomato onion gravy, of course).
He said I did it correctly — whoop! — and then he ate the leftovers for breakfast.
Eucefe’s Xima
2 cups water
1 cup (approximately) finely-ground white corn meal, like Iwisa
Put 2 cups of water in a saucepan. Turn on the heat. Begin sprinkling in some meal, a little at a time, stirring steadily. When the mixture starts to feel thick, stop adding meal.
Now, focus on stirring. Stir steadily and hard until the mixture is hot-hot, and it’s thick like cookie dough or mashed potatoes. Turn off the heat.
Spoon the xima into a serving bowl, dipping the spoon in a bowl of cold water between scoops.
To eat, scoop a bit of xima into one hand and knead it into a ball. Make an indentation and use it to scoop up the other food on your plate. (Or just eat it with a fork, like thick mashed potatoes.)
This amount feeds 2-4 adults.
This same time, years previous: Emily’s prize-winning tres leche cake, milkslinger, the quotidian (4.3.23), ground beef chili with chocolate and peanut butter, the coronavirus diaries: week four.
