I think tomatoes are one of my top five favorite foods. Take a firm, red tomato. Cut a fat slab from the center. Sprinkle a pinch of Maldon* and take a bite. The flavor almost explodes in the mouth. It’s tangy and a little sweet, with a savory-ness to balance. And the crunchy salt that spreads from the roof of your mouth down to the teeth, is just salty icing on a tomato cake.
I love ‘em all.** Heirloom tomatoes, in all their beautiful, colorful glory; meaty San Marzano tomatoes for perfect sauce; tiny, sweet pear tomatoes, just made for snacking, still warm from the sun.
But my favorite is Cosmonaut, a variety that reminds me of the New Jersey tomatoes of my youth. They were so acidic and sweet that I’d get mouth ulcers from them, like I’d eaten half a bag of Sour Patch Kids. I’d slather mayo and butter on a toasted hamburger roll or English muffin and eat the perfect summer sandwich.
Usually I go tomato crazy but this year I only bought 30 pounds of Roma tomatoes from Deep Roots Farm so I spent just a day canning tomatoes this summer.
I made Tomato Conserva which is like a rich tomato paste. To make it, quarter 10 # tomatoes, put them in a large pot and add 1/2 cup OO and 1 T kosher salt. Cook them on top of the stove until the skins fall off. Put them through a food mill and return them to the pot. Reduce by 1/3.
Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
Pour the crushed and reduced tomatoes onto two sheet trays and bake for two hours.
Make sure the tomatoes aren’t getting too dark around the edges by stirring them from time to time. After two hours, combine the paste onto one tray (wash the pan if you, like me, only have two sheet trays) Bake for another hour. Continue to stir and condense on to a clean sheet tray for 30 more minutes. The conserva should be a dark brick color. Spoon into three sterile one-cup jars, top with olive oil and process in a boiling water bath for 15 minutes. Yes, 10 pounds of tomatoes yields three cups of conserva.
My next favorite thing to do with tomatoes is simply canning them ‘whole’. Start with cutting an X in the bottom of each tomato. In batches, blanch them in boiling water for a few seconds. Shock them in cold (ice) water, core them and jam the flesh into sterile quart jars. Add a fat pinch of salt and a tablespoon of lemon juice (juice from concentrate like ReaLemon is fine) to each jar. Top with boiling water OR cook and strain the pulp and seeds you removed from the tomatoes and use it to bring up the water level of the jars. Process for 20-30 minutes.
I also made a fun Confit Tomato the other day. Take four good-sized heirloom or other round tomato variety. Cut an X in the bottom. Blanch for 30 seconds, shock in cold water and peel. Then very gently, remove the core. It’s not easy as the tomatoes are slippery.
Take 2 Tbsps of sugar, mix it with the finely chopped zest of two lemons. Put the tomatoes in a baking dish, divide the sugar and lemon mix evenly between the four tomatoes. Drizzle with 1/2 cup of the fruitiest olive oil you have. Bake @ 200 degrees for three hours. Baste at least thrice per hour to keep the tomatoes moist. When a thin knife blade meets little resistance, the tomatoes are done. Serve warm or at room temp. Serve
one per person in a small bowl, drizzle with pan juice. WOW they are delicious! It makes a great appetizer or side dish.
Celebrate Love &
Love Apples.
xoxo
Nancy
*(coarse sea salt from the town of Maldon, in Essex on the Blackwater estuary, on the eastern side of the UK.
**Please allow me to nerd out on the pinnacle of the nightshade family, the love apple, the tomato. According to Brittanica, the species originated in the Andes mountains, Peru and Ecuador. Domesticated in pre-Columbia’s Mexico the name comes from the Aztec word tomatl. As members of the deadly nightshade family, their edible nature was almost unexplored as it was domesticated as an ornamental plant in Northern Europe. And thought to be quite deadly. But what I didn’t know is that the roots and leaves are poisonous and contain the neurotoxin solanine.
