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LIFESTYLE

In the Kitchen

Terry Paulding
Contributor
September 2007

Every year in September, I purchase a lot of dry farmed Early Girl tomatoes. I get these at farmers markets—Berkeley on Tuesday has Dirty Girl Farm, Grand Lake on Saturday features Wild Boar Farm and a few others. If you’ve never had these tomatoes, you’re in for a revelation. Dry farmed means that they don’t get much or any water towards the end of their growth, which causes them to have a delicious dense, meaty texture. Their skin is thicker than other tomatoes, too, and the size is smaller, usually plum size. They have a great balance of sweetness and acidity, and not a lot of seeds.

I’ve used these tomatoes in myriad ways, and always look forward to the beginning of August when they show up in the market. If you cook your average heirloom tomato, you get a LOT of liquid. These, not so much. Probably on a par with a good San Marzano plum tomato, in fact. But again, I buy them for that flavor—it’s hauntingly good, the exemplar of what you think of as tomato.

All summer I use them raw, and to cook with. Try making my favorite easy tomato sauce. Toss it with some pasta and diced fresh mozzarella (and/or some well-browned Italian sausage), and top with some grated Parmesan; use the sauce on your favorite pizza dough, just add some oregano - or use in your favorite eggplant parmesan recipe. The sauce freezes very well, and I always make a bit extra since it’s so versatile.

These great tomatoes are also wonderful raw in a classic Caprese salad—with fresh mozzarella and basil. I you didn’t grow any basil this year, think of it for next spring. A pot on the windowsill will give you great rewards, even if you don’t have a garden. All it needs is plenty of sun and regular watering. If you buy bunched basil, by the way, don’t refrigerate it. It will rapidly turn brown and become inedible. Instead, put it in a glass of water on the counter. You can make a little mini-green house by loosely topping the bunch with the plastic bag it came home in, so there is still some air flow. It will keep at least a week. If you cut basil, try a ceramic knife if you have one—or just tear the leaves, to keep it from browning so fast.

Back to that wonderful thick skinned Early girl: there is more than one advantage to that skin. The tomatoes keep rather longer than their thinner skinned, more delicate cousins. And, you can do my favorite thing—you can freeze them whole and have them all winter long. Not being one to slave over a canning pot, I started doing this a number of years ago. At their peak, I fill gallon zip bags with whole, unpeeled, not even washed, tomatoes. OK, you don’t have a huge freezer—do one gallon bag this year, and I guarantee you’ll be throwing the ice cube trays out next year. They are that good. You just take out however many you need (they stay separate in the bag), run them under warmish water and the skin peels right off. You can chop them up easily while they’re frozen, and make your favorite sauce (or mine). No, you can’t eat them without cooking at this point. Yes, you could in fact buy a can of tomatoes instead. But nothing, I guarantee you, will please you more than having these as a treat, at your beck and call when you need them. This year, I’m freezing more—probably about 40 pounds. Then, I can have Early Girl tomato soup or sauce, whenever I want it.

Terry’s Totally Easy Tomato Sauce

Yield: 3-4 cups

• 2 lbs. fresh farm-ripe tomatoes (dry farmed Early Girls, or Romas), stemmed and peeled* or one 28-ounce can of peeled tomatoes in puree

• 1 medium sized yellow onion, peeled and coarsely diced

• 2 cloves garlic, peeled

• 6 basil leaves (optional)

• 1/4 cup Extra-virgin olive oil

• salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Note: if you have a food mill, you can skip the tomato peeling & seeding below, and simply run the finished sauce through the mill.

Halve the peeled tomatoes*, and put a strainer over a bowl. Gently squeeze the seeds from each tomato half, collecting the juice. Peel and cut the onion and garlic, and combine tomatoes, with their juice, onion and garlic, and basil leaves in a blender and process to a coarse purée.

Choose a non-aluminum (non-reactive) heavy pot for the sauce. Warm the olive oil in it over low flame. Pour blender contents into the pan, and cook, stirring occasionally, until nicely thickened. As the sauce cooks, lightly salt it and add freshly ground pepper, to taste.—it will cook down and concentrate, so getting the salt just right at first will make it too salty later.

Let the sauce bubble and cook, stirring occasionally, for about half an hour,, at the highest temperature you can use without it splattering all over the stove. Once the sauce is done, taste and adjust seasonings, adding more salt if needed. You can also vary the seasoning it as you like, with fresh or dried herbs, chili flakes, etc. A great use for this sauce is to pair it with some grilled eggplant, some sliced fresh mozzarella and some Parmesan; just bake and devour. The sauce freezes well and makes a great base for your favorite pasta sauce.

*to peel tomatoes, boil a pot of water and remove the stem attachment with a paring knife; cut an “X” in the bottom end, through the skin but not into the flesh. Place in boiling water for 20 seconds, drain and cool. Skins should slip right off.

Terry Paulding is President of Paulding & Company, a Creative Kitchen, 1410 D 62nd Street in Emeryville. Visit her website at www.pauldingandco.com.