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Today on the counter you can see tomatoes of various stripes, marvel at their colors and bizarre shapes. How best to use their beautiful multi-colored features?
Now we, like Europeans during the conquistador campaigns (when the conquerors brought multi-colored tomato bushes from the Aztecs to decorate flower beds and flower beds), can admire the whole gamut of colors and shades of these fruits. On the shelves next to orange or red tomatoes – the most common color in the tomato family – you can find yellow and even black ones. Some of them have an oblong shape, imitating the kings of Italian tomato sauces – tomatoes “Roma” and “San Marzano”. They have a deep and muscat taste. “Currant” is even smaller than cherry tomatoes and is still rare. It is hundreds of grams lighter than the bull’s heart tomato, which can weigh up to a kilogram. Between these two extremes on the shelves of the markets is a long line of delicious varieties – “Peach”, “Bern Rose”, “Black Crimean”, “Pineapple”, “Emerald Apple”, “Evergreen”, “Yellow Filling”. They can be round or elongated, smooth or ribbed, all good for salad and sauce. Round ones are convenient to stuff, long ones are marinated. A recent variety, kumato, deserves to be tasted, raw or cooked. They are strong, sugar-flavored, perfectly round, but when stuffed with ricotta, egg yolk and basil and baked in the oven, their bronzed skin takes on the hue of antique gold.
Pasta with red cherry tomatoes
For 4 persons
Preparation: 10 minutes.
Preparation: 10 minutes.
• 300 g pasta: fusilli (spirals) or penne (feathers)
• 450 g cherry tomatoes – ripe but firm
• 4 cloves of young garlic
• 6 pinches marjoram or oregano
• 3 pinches ground cayenne pepper
• 3 sprigs of basil with small thick leaves.
• 4 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil.
• 1 tbsp. l. topped with coarse sea salt
• finely ground sea salt, black pepper
Wash the tomatoes, dry them and cut them in half.
Peel the garlic and cut it into thin slices.
Wash the basil, dry it and remove the leaves.
Pour olive oil into a wok, add cayenne pepper, black pepper, marjoram or oregano, and heat over low heat. At the same time, boil a large pot of pasta water.
Drop the garlic cloves into the hot oil. When they become translucent, add the tomatoes and turn the heat up to high.
When the water boils, throw pasta into it and add 1 tbsp. l. coarse sea salt. Intervene. While pasta is cooking – 5-6 minutes. (al dente), – the tomatoes will soften and mix with fragrant oil.
Using a slotted spoon, transfer the pasta to the tomatoes. Stir, reduce the heat and, stirring constantly, bring the pasta along with the tomatoes over low heat until cooked. Sprinkle salt on top.
tomato sauces
Ripe red kumato tomatoes add a particularly delicious flavor to tomato sauces. The recipe is the same as for any other varieties. Cut the tomatoes into four pieces. Put them in a saucepan, bake for fifteen minutes in the microwave, then grind in a blender with a attachment with medium-sized knives. Pour the resulting tomato puree into the same pan, add a sprig of basil, a clove of garlic, a little salt, sugar and fresh bay leaf. Place the saucepan back in the microwave and cook for ten to twenty minutes, depending on how thin you want the sauce to be, whether you like it runny or thick.
You can also add fresh thyme, capsicum, black pepper, ginger, olive oil… And no messy splashes, no need to keep an eye on cooking, just the wonderful taste of fresh vegetables.
Creamy yellow tomato soup with olive oil
On 4 persons.
Preparation and cooking: 20 minutes
• 600 g yellow tomatoes
• 4 tbsp. l. extra virgin olive oil
• 2 tbsp. l. lemon juice
• Salt, white pepper
• 12 purple basil leaves
Wash the tomatoes, cut them into quarters, put them in a round microwave dish (20 cm in diameter).
Place the dish in the microwave for 10 minutes to soften the tomatoes and release some of the juice, then transfer them, along with the juice, to a blender fitted with medium blades. Add lemon juice, olive oil, salt and white pepper. Stir. Then put the soup in the refrigerator.
Pour the soup into deep bowls or bowls and garnish with basil leaves.
The same dish can be prepared with orange, pink, black and, of course, red tomatoes.
Such a soup can be prepared by softening the tomatoes in a saucepan over very low heat, without adding water and without bringing them to a boil.
Green tomato chutney with fresh coriander seeds.
For 4 or 6 persons.
Preparation: 15 minutes
Preparation: 15 minutes
• 600 g green tomatoes
• 50 g fresh ginger
• 150 g sugar
• 100 ml of vinegar
• 1 coffee spoon of finely ground sea salt
• 1 tbsp. l. fresh coriander seeds (cilantro)
Remove the tomato stalks and hard top by cutting out a cone with a sharp knife. Wash the tomatoes and cut the skin off them like an apple. Unlike red tomatoes, the skin of green ones does not separate even after they are dipped in boiling and then cold water.
Cut them into slices 3 mm wide and place in a colander. Peel the ginger and grate it on a coarse grater.
Pour vinegar into a saucepan 20 cm in diameter, add ginger, sugar, salt. Bring to a boil, let simmer for a minute, then add the tomatoes. Leave to cook over a fairly high heat until the juice thickens and begins to wrap around the tomatoes like jelly: this will take about ten minutes.
About 2 minutes before the end of the boil, add the coriander seeds and mix well.
Chill the chutney and refrigerate (it can be stored there for up to three weeks). By the way, using the same recipe without salt and vinegar, but with double the amount of sugar, you will get a wonderful jam.
Before serving, you can garnish the dish with finely chopped cilantro leaves.
If you don’t have fresh coriander seeds, use dried ones. Although you can easily get fresh seeds by growing cilantro in a pot. These small green juicy balls with a delightful strong and fresh aroma add wonderful flavor to salads and sauces.