While in Nasu we discovered a nice little restaurant called Cu-eri which is run by a couple of Japanese chefs, one of them trained in France. Their cuisine uses local ingredients in French inspired recipes and even some classic recipes very well realized. One thing that I really enjoyed was the way they used soft spices in their cuisine, particularly paprika and cinnamon, and it really inspired me to add some in my cooking. The first thing I tried was a soft spices tomato sauce to eat with plain polenta, grilled eggplants and cumin chickpeas and chicken balls. Here is the recipe of my tomato sauce.

Spicy tomato sauce (for a small dip quantity)

– 3 big fresh ripen tomatoes

– cinnamon grounded

– nutmeg

– chai spice

Wash and peel the tomatoes. In a pan put the tomatoes roughly diced, add the cinnamon and the nutmeg to your liking. In my case I put 1tbs well packed of cinnamon and 1/2tsp of nutmeg. Cook at low heat under cover until the juice of the tomatoes has almost dried off, the slower the better to have the spice infused and the sweetness of the tomatoes enhanced. A few minutes before finishing cooking add a pinch of chai spice.

Serve with what pleases you. It was perfect for accompanying polenta!