Tuesday, September 17, 2019

tomato tip




I haven’t grown tomatoes for several years, but this Spring there were lots of organic heritage-type tomato plants for sale at the library fundraiser, so I brought a selection home and stuck them in the gardens. Five of the six have produced tomatoes on huge plants - I have never had such jungle-like growth from tomato plants! Perhaps my soil improvements have really made a difference, or maybe it was all the rain.




So far, only a couple of tomatoes have ripened, and I used them in a stew.
Without taking pictures of them first, darn it.
Which is why every picture in this post is of a green tomato.

But peeling those two ripe tomatoes before chopping them up to add to the stew made me think of a fun kitchen tip to share.


Yes! A cooking tip! Oh, this is a Special Event on the Comptonia blog!

Of course, it’s possible you all know this tip already...but we’ll see.

Ahem.

"The Easiest Way to Peel a Tomato"

Cut a small “x” in the bottom of a whole tomato.
Gently lower the tomato into a pot of boiling water.
Wait one minute.
Lift the tomato out and lower into a bowl of very cold water.
The peel will slip right off in your fingers.

This works even with wildly-shaped tomatoes, not just the perfectly globular ones.


In the interest of experimentation, or possibly because I forgot, I didn’t make the “x” on one tomato. It still worked, but I had to make a little cut after the cold water bath to get the peel started. If you make the “x” the tomato sort of begins peeling itself before you even take it out of the cold water.

That’s the tip! Did you already know it? If not, I hope you’ll try it. It’s magic.

Right now there are several very large green tomatoes and a few gradually ripening tomatoes on the plants. The weather will determine if I’ll be freezing any "extra" ripe tomatoes (if so, I will probably peel them and freeze them whole) or if I’ll be hastily harvesting lots of green tomatoes just before a hard frost. I don't really have a place to store green tomatoes for ripening, although I've had fairly good results doing that in the past. But I have another idea.


When I lived in Colorado, I once made a batch of green tomato chutney. I had never eaten chutney of any kind, and had no idea of how to use it, but back then I was fearless and had a lot of energy and a strong desire to raise and make all my own food. So even though the jars of chutney had to “cure” for 6 months before opening, I was game. And even though it took a few disappointing taste-tests before I hit upon the right “serve with,” when I finally tried it on ham, it was simply fantastic.

(And by the way, I had also raised the pigs that made the ham. And baked the bread that was served with the ham. And so on.)

So...if I end up with a lot of green tomatoes this year, I may try to find that chutney recipe and make another batch. I still remember how good the kitchen smelled when it was simmering on the stove. It would be worth doing it just for that!



Bonus tip:
Today I tried the same peeling method with some large plums.
It worked exactly the same way.

~~~~~

14 comments:

  1. The boiling water idea works just about universally. Peaches, almonds, plums etc. It's very cool.

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  2. You blanch them this way. It was my Christmas cake job as a little kid to do the blanching of the almonds. I had to wait till the water was cooled down a bit, and felt very important. You slip off the brown skins if the recipe requires white almonds.

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    1. That sounds like a lovely memory :) Thanks for the added info, Liz.

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  3. Thank you. The x makes a difference I didn't know about. Mother made End of the Garden salad to can, green beans, tomatoes, peppers. Its like a special chunky relish.

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    1. That sounds so good! I tried to borrow a pressure canner this year, but none of the places I looked had one available.

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  4. Neat trick! I've never done the X. I usually have a sinkful and pour a big pot of boiling water over them, leave them for a few minutes and the skins just slip off. I had to smile over the chutney/ham/bread thing--so like my life, way back when and to some extent even now!

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    1. Yes, I think we've traveled similar roads :)

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  5. All that I have is green tomatoes too (we ate the only red one so far)! I love the trick but I think that I'll eat them raw if I get any more red ones!

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    1. Today I saw there are three massive tomatoes ripening all at once, and I have to decide what to do with them pretty quickly because I can't possibly eat that much tomato before they spoil!

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  6. I've never been able to grow very big tomatoes. The past couple of times I grew them, mealy bugs took over and spread which are very hard to get rid of, so didn't have tomato plants last year. Yours look great. I have heard of the boiling method but don't really make anything where I need to get rid of the peel. Chutney sounds good. Bet it would be good on some blackeyed peas. You could always do fried green tomatoes. In fact, if I had some blackeyed peas, fried green tomatoes and cornbread, I'd be a very happy camper. And now I'm hungry. :) Have a good weekend.

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    1. I'd be pretty happy if I just had the cornbread - I really need to get back in the habit of baking cornbread and Irish soda bread!

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  7. Yes, I knew that tip, but I ever thought it would work on "wildly shaped" tomatoes, so I never tried it. Now I have to go out and buy some and try this out! (Thanks a lot--I hadn't planned to leave the house today!!)

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    1. I look forward to seeing your tomato portrait :)

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