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| title | created | author | keywords | description |
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| What to Do with Peak-Season Tomatoes (Besides Salad) | 2024-06-18 09:30 | Amelia Fontaine | tomatoes, summer, slow roast, confit, gazpacho, umami | Six preparations for peak summer tomatoes — from slow roasting to a raw sauce and tomato jam — plus the science of why cooked tomatoes taste different. |
What to Do with Peak-Season Tomatoes (Besides Salad)
There is a window each summer, roughly six to eight weeks, when tomatoes are worth cooking with. Outside this window — and for most of the year in Northern Europe this is outside this window — tomatoes are a disappointment, flavourless and watery, and you are better off using good tinned San Marzano. But in July and August, when the tomatoes at the market have been grown outside in actual sunshine and handled briefly before they reach you, they are extraordinary.
The problem is that most people only know how to do one thing with a great tomato: put it in a salad. Here are six more.
Why Cooked Tomatoes Taste Different
Tomatoes contain glutamates — the amino acids responsible for umami — as well as volatile aromatic compounds. When raw, the aromatics are what you notice: fresh, bright, slightly acidic. When cooked, two things happen. First, heat drives off the volatile compounds, reducing the fresh brightness. Second, the glutamates become more concentrated as water evaporates, intensifying the savoury quality. This is why tomato paste has much more umami impact than raw tomato, and why slow-cooked tomato sauces taste fundamentally different from quick ones.
Different preparations exploit these properties in different ways.
1. Slow Roasted
Cut tomatoes in half, place cut-side up in a single layer on a baking sheet. Season with salt, pepper, sugar (a pinch), olive oil. Roast at 150°C for 2.5–3 hours until collapsed, concentrated, and slightly caramelised.
These are transformative. The flavour intensity is extraordinary — ten times the tomato per square centimetre of a raw slice. Use them on bruschetta, in pasta (they are a sauce already), on pizza, alongside burrata, in sandwiches. They keep refrigerated in olive oil for a week.
2. Confit
Confit is slower and lower than slow roasting: 120°C for 3–4 hours, generously covered with olive oil, with garlic cloves and fresh thyme in the pan. The tomatoes do not colour; they soften into silky, oil-poached jewels. The oil they are cooked in becomes extraordinary — use it on everything.
3. Raw Sauce (Pasta al Pomodoro Crudo)
No cooking required. Dice a pound of ripe tomatoes roughly. Add a clove of crushed garlic, a lot of torn basil, 4 tablespoons of your best olive oil, salt, a pinch of sugar if needed. Let sit at room temperature for 30 minutes — the salt draws juice from the tomatoes, which mixes with the oil and basil into a sauce.
Cook pasta until slightly undercooked, drain with a little water still clinging to it, and toss with the raw sauce. The heat of the pasta gently warms the tomatoes without cooking them. Serve in warm bowls. This is the best pasta of the entire year when the tomatoes are right.
4. Gazpacho
Blend 1kg roughly chopped tomatoes, half a cucumber, half a red pepper, 2 garlic cloves, a thick slice of stale white bread (soaked in water, squeezed dry), 100ml olive oil, 3 tbsp sherry vinegar, salt. Blend until completely smooth. Season. Refrigerate at least 2 hours, ideally overnight.
Serve in cold glasses with a drizzle of olive oil and very finely diced cucumber, pepper, and tomato on top. It should be thick but pourable. The bread emulsifies the olive oil; without it the gazpacho separates.
5. Tomato Tart
Make a rough puff pastry or buy good butter puff. Spread with a thin layer of Dijon mustard. Scatter over Gruyère or Comté. Arrange sliced tomatoes in slightly overlapping rows. Season with salt, pepper, thyme. Bake at 200°C for 25–30 minutes until the pastry is deeply golden and the tomatoes have collapsed slightly.
This is a Provençal dish by temperament — it requires very good tomatoes, very good cheese, and the confidence to do almost nothing to them.
6. Tomato Jam
This is the unexpected one, and people are always suspicious until they eat it. Combine 1kg chopped tomatoes with 200g sugar, a tablespoon of lemon juice, a teaspoon of grated fresh ginger, half a teaspoon of cumin, a pinch of chilli. Cook over medium heat, stirring frequently, for 45–60 minutes until thick and jammy.
It is extraordinary with aged cheese, cold cuts, and pork. It will keep refrigerated for a month. The sweetness and acidity of the jam makes sense once you taste it — it is actually just another way of intensifying the tomato.
The One Rule
Whatever you make, use the best tomatoes you can find and trust them. Good tomatoes need very little help. Poor tomatoes cannot be rescued.