It’s All About Tomatoes

Simple Tomato Salad, Tomato Sashimi, My Tomato Sauce, & Tomato and Shrimp Pasta

Let me start by saying, I do not love tomatoes. Honestly, I don’t particularly like tomatoes. However, part of my quest to become a better food journalist is to become a better chef, which means cooking with ingredients I don’t always care for. 

And so, when my next MasterClass lesson was “Peeling Tomatoes,” I doggedly set out to find recipes that called for an abundance and variety of tomatoes.  

One recipe, a tomato salad, was provided by the lesson. The remaining three were sourced from Michael Anthony’s cookbook “V is for Vegetables” - Tomato Sashimi, My Tomato Sauce, and Tomato and Shrimp Pasta. 

Simple Tomato Salad

This particular recipe was really more of a suggestion of something you should try and less of a formal recipe. But when the suggestion comes from Thomas Keller, the Master of this particular Master Class, it’s probably worth trying. 

As I mentioned, I’m not a fan of the tomato, especially when left raw. It’s not the taste that bothers me, it’s the texture. So when Chef Keller said that by removing the tomato skin you can remove some of the textural unpleasantness, I was excited to see if that would work for me. 

Before I could make the salad, I needed to peel the tomatoes. By making a small x-shaped incision at the base and blanching them for a couple of seconds, I was able to quickly peel the small cherry tomatoes. I was surprised at just how easily the skin fell off. 

Once I had my cherry tomatoes peeled, it was onto the salad assembly. There were only four ingredients: olive oil, champagne or sherry vinegar, salt, and of course, tomatoes. I took my best guess on how much of each ingredient to add and gave my salad a try. 

My first bite was confusing. My body instinctively rejected the raw tomato given all my previous distasteful interactions with them. But then my taste buds kicked in and I became aware that the flavors were good and not wholly unpleasant. 

So I took another bite. 

And one more bite.

Finally, I realized that with the skins removed I could enjoy this simple cherry tomato. The sherry vinegar gave it a zing with a hint of sweetness and the olive oil made it feel rich and decadent.  

Unsurprisingly, Chef Keller was correct. Tomatoes, without their skins, can be a refined experience. And given how simple and quick the salad was to make, it’s probably something I will make again. 

Tomato Sashimi 

Given the success of the simple tomato salad, I was looking forward to this recipe. It was another raw dish. Very simple and understated but beautifully prepared and plated. 

I set out to peel my heirloom tomatoes, expecting an easy peeling experience. Unfortunately, that was not the case. The skin had a tendency to stick in some places, making it truly tedious work. Furthermore, removing the skin removed some of the beautiful colors that make heirloom tomatoes so special. 

My struggles did not end there. The tomatoes were fragile and soft without the skin. I needed thin knife cuts and was unable to keep the tomatoes from breaking apart. This resulted in some very sad-looking tomato slices. 

When I finally had enough slices to plate, I added the final ingredients - soy sauce, white sesame seeds, and salt. 

Despite it all, I was still optimistic the dish would taste good. Sadly, I found it lacking. It was too much tomato without the bright notes of acid the other dish provided. Perhaps with thinner slices, I could have achieved a better taste but I don’t think it’s worth trying to make the dish again. 

I should point out that my husband, who very much likes tomatoes, found this dish delicious and finished it all for me. 

My Tomato Sauce 

The next recipe was something I was more familiar with and very excited to try. After all, who doesn’t know what spaghetti sauce is? 

But this was not the tomato sauce of our grandmothers, as Chef Anthony pointed out. His recipe used fresh ingredients and didn’t need to be cooked all day. Furthermore, it didn’t use tomato paste, something I was really excited about. Not that there is nothing wrong with tomato paste. It just really irks me that recipes call for so little and the cans always have more than you need. You either have to throw it out, which is wasteful, or freeze it, which is a hassle. 

The recipe starts with garlic, red onion, olive oil, red pepper flakes, oregano, and a dash of red wine vinegar. Then you’ll gradually add in your tomatoes, letting them break down before adding more. These tomatoes were also peeled since that was the theme of this lesson. Thankfully these proved to be like their smaller cousins and were a breeze to peel. 

When all the tomatoes were added, I let the sauce simmer and thicken before adding a handful of fresh basil. Finally, I transferred the mixture to a blender and processed it until it was nice and smooth. 

The taste of the sauce was delicious. A little spicy, a little sweet, and very fresh. This might be my new go-to sauce for a quick weekday meal.

Tomato & Shrimp Pasta (sans shrimp) 

While the tomato sauce was delicious, it obviously needed something… pasta!

Now, as much as I love shrimp, I decided to leave it out. This was, after all, a tomato lesson, and omitting the shrimp wouldn’t detract from the dish while saving me time and money. 

I also feel obligated to point out that this recipe only serves two. I mention this because I happened to overlook that fact when making the dish and was severely disappointed with the small amount of pasta I prepared. I had assumed that this recipe would serve more given how much pasta sauce we made specifically to go with this recipe. 

I was also distracted by the preparation method for this pasta. It did NOT involve cooking my pasta in boiling water. Instead, we would cook the pasta in a dry pan and gradually add in the liquid. 

The recipe starts by adding shallots, garlic, ginger, olive oil, and red pepper flakes to a pan. The combination of aromas made my mouth water. 

Next, I added my pasta, along with some water, and let the pasta cook. The idea, explained by Chef Anthony, is that the pasta will naturally thicken the sauce and the flavor will be amazing. 

And it was.

The sauce was delicious. I honestly wanted to stop cooking and serve the pasta with just that sauce. It was that good. 

While the pasta was cooking, I prepared baby bell peppers with some garlic and ginger. I added this to the pasta when it was finished cooking, followed by the tomato sauce I had just made.

It was delicious. You could still taste the earlier flavors of shallot, ginger, and garlic but now with the freshness brought by the tomato sauce. I loved the little kick from the red pepper flakes and the texture that the baby sweet bell peppers added. It was a fun dish that was simple to make and packed with delicious flavors. 

I like the pasta dish so much, I made it again for that night’s dinner! 

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