During the summer I generally stick to light, simple meals. I’m not in the mood for something heavy, but more importantly I’d rather go to the pool with the girls than work in the kitchen for two hours. This goes for side dishes, too. And it just doesn’t get much lighter or simpler than this tomato salad.
Ingredients
tomatoes
extra virgin olive oil
balsamic vinegar
kosher salt and fresh ground black pepper
Directions
Wash the tomatoes, remove the vine (if it’s attached) and cut out the root of the stem. This is easiest with a paring knife.
Note in the video that I’m holding the handle of the knife with my little finger, not holding the blade. The other thing to notice is that I’m using my thumb, right near the tip of the blade, to control how deeply the blade goes into the tomato.
Once the stems are cut out, cut each tomato into quarters then in half the other direction.
The exact number of cuts isn’t important, just cut them into bite-sized pieces.
Drizzle with olive oil and vinegar.
Top with salt & pepper.
And that’s it.
Tomorrow I’ll show a tip for grilling a perfect steak every time.
Want more like this? For more recipes like this, that you can hold right in your hands, and write on, take notes, tear pages out if you want (Gosh, you're tough on books, aren't you?) you might be interested in How To Cook Like Your Grandmother, 2nd edition, Illustrated. Or to learn your way around the kitchen, check out Starting From Scratch: The Owner's Manual for Your Kitchen.
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5 Comments
What is with all the tomato recipes I’ve been seeing lately? Don’t tease me–we don’t have tomatoes yet and won’t for another month probably. And yet I am still forced to look at all these photos of juicy tomatoes THAT I CAN’T HAVE YET. Check back with me in a month. I’ll be over it by then and up to my eyeballs in tomatoes.
And when you’re up to your eyeballs you’ll say, “What’s with all the tomato recipes? I’m up to my eyeballs and I’m still forced to look at more of them.”
Once my father-in-law’s crop comes in I’ll probably be canning more than I use fresh. We’ll see how much he gets this year.
you can use the strawberry huller on your tomatoes too to remove the rot end of the stem. then it would have 2 uses instead of one (though i guess it’s really still one use, just two different fruits)
I like it – simple, easy, practically fool-proof!
And I’m with Kristin – we won’t have fresh tomatoes for a while, if at all. My tomato plants are looking pretty sad right now. Oh well.
I’m going to try the strawberry tool on the tomatoes, just out of curiosity if it will work. I’m pretty quick with the knife, so I’d rather not have another thin to have to clean.
Stephanie, never say fool-proof. We keep trying, and the universe keeps building better fools. And so far the universe is winning.