recipe calls for skinned tomatoes. I seem to recall par-boiling some tomatoes once (about 1 minute in boiling water, then into ice water) as being recommended as the way to skin tomatoes. Or am I thinking of something else?
Yes it is, no you’re not. With a very sharp knife, cut a tiny cross into the base of each one before plunging it into the hot water. The skin should peel back from the cross without you having to mash the tomato getting a fingernail under there. You may not need as much as a minute in the boiling water either, depending on what you’re going to use them for afterwards.
thanks! so maybe 30 seconds? it’s for a soup, so I’m not too worried about mushiness - they’ll end up in the food processor eventually.
ETA: Alton Brown does not leave them in the boiling water that long. Hang on, let me see if I can scratch up his instructions… Nope, I can’t. Just watched that episode too. Oh well…
I like to broil mine, a la Rick Bayless. It only takes a few minutes, and concentrates the flavor rather than watering it down.
In my opinion, the only true way for a tomato to enter most meals is in the form of a concassé – parboiled, and skin removed; then, remove the seeds (depending on how resilient they are, this may work well with just your fingers, perhaps a spoon, or you may have to actually sort of fillet the tomatoes), and chop them up in whatever way you see fit. That’s pure tomato-y goodness right there.
However, I only go through all that trouble when I want to impress somebody. There’s good enough canned stuff for all my own purposes otherwise.
If I was making soup, I’d go with Unauthorised Cinnamon and stick them under the grill or in the oven instead. Just do them like a pepper. It does, as my esteemed colleague points out, tend to concentrate the flavour and bring out the true tomato. I really only do the boiling water plunge if I’m making gazpacho and want to be anal about skin, or if I’m candying them.
Actually, recent studies have show that if you discard the tomato water/gel, you’re discarding a significant amount of flavor.
Also, properly blanching tomatoes to peel doesn’t make them watery – they’re not in the water that long. If you roast tomatoes long enough to loosen the peel, you no longer have raw tomatoes. Not to say that’s undesirable, but keep the desired end result in mind when choosing a peeling method.
went with the par-boiling approach - worked well and the soup’s done!
thanks for your suggestions, everyone.
You know what’s weirdly tasty? Cut the top off a cherry tomato. Take out the core but leave the jelly. Fill the space with very cold dry sherry. Sprinkle on a few grains of black pepper. Slurp. Sometimes on a hot summer evening we just have a plate of these for supper with crusty bread and Parmesan. It’s surprising how tipsy you can get on tomatoes!