Tomato Recipes - Cook with Fresh Tomatoes

As a Chef it seemed relevant to have a whole section on all-about-tomatoes.com about Tomato Recipes !

In my job I use tomatoes in cooking every single day in muffins, scones, savouries and quiches. In the coming months you will see not only some fairly standard recipes but also some of my own creations and our best sellers.

There seem to be two problems that I see most often when talking to people about recipes with tomatoes in them, these are moisture levels and types to use in various dishes.

Tomato Moisture Levels in Cooking

Often when people start cooking with tomatoes they find that their fabulous creations look impressive, but when it comes time to serve the food, although it is cooked - the dish is wet inside making it less desirable.

There are two different ways around this and each has it's benefits. If you are cooking things such as savouries or Quiche you will be using both eggs and cream. The addition of tomato to these recipes leads to a higher level of water in the dish. If you are cooking with savouries you have three options;

you can drain the tomatoes of water before adding to the recipe and cook longer. The problem with this method may be visual as the longer they cook the more brown on top the dish becomes.

Secondly, you can blind bake the pastry first to allow it to cook on the bottom and not soak up the moisture. Whilst the pastry is blind baking, you should chop your tomatoes and if diced, drain them, if sliced then sit them on kitchen paper. This is my method of choice if the pastry is only around the base of the dish.

The third can be used when using pastry over the top as in Bacon, Tomato and Egg pies. Create the pie as normal without blind baking, drain tomatoes as much as possible, seal up and glaze as needed. Cook until pastry is properly golden brown, and then transfer the dish to a flat grill with temperature of 200 degrees for 6 minutes. This allows any moisture that has gone into the base pastry to be eliminated and ensures that the pastry on the bottom is properly cooked.

Types of Tomatoes to use in Cooking

The second problem comes when people use tomatoes which are not actually suited for the purpose they are used. Some of the heirloom variety tomatoes are spectacular to eat - ones like Brandywine or Black Krim may have an amazing flavour, but when put into cooked items, give off far too much moisture and require the food to be cooked longer which may ruin the look of the dish.

Tomato varieties that are traditionally used for their pulp however, yeild a far nicer result in cooking. Roma is one of my favourite types as it has been hybridised into many plant sizes but the fruit remains consistent. They have a high amount of flesh and less water which makes for a better consistency in cooking although they are much more bland when it comes to eating raw.

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