1,601 easy and fully explained recipes, with +66K photos and 77 videos

The taste of raw tomatoes

Let's take a look at tomatoes, which are still in full bloom at the end of summer (as I write these lines), and which make for delicious salads.

I had already talked to you about the interest of peeling tomatoes, which gives them an extraordinary sweetness in the mouth, but let's talk about the taste this time. Of course, we are talking about seasonal tomatoes, which have grown in the area, and are both tasty and juicy.

17 K 4.9/5 (14 reviews)

Keywords for this post:Tomatoes Taste Summer Season Salt Juice Extraction

Last modified on: September 8^th 2018

For this post Comments Lasts posts Follow

For this post: Comment Follow Ask me a question Send to a friend

Let's say you were going to make a salad with tomato slices, you might have peeled them (if not, try it as soon as possible!) and sliced them before putting them in your salad bowl. It's natural to do this, but it will have an unpleasant effect: when in contact with the dressing and the salt it contains, the tomato slices will give off a lot of juice, vegetation water in fact, and this juice will dilute the sauce in question. This means that if you prepare your tomato salad in advance, it is likely to be bathed in a very liquid juice-sauce mixture, which is not very pleasant.

Can this be avoided? Yes, there is a way to correct this problem, as in this recipe for example:

- You peel your tomatoes (if possible)
- You cut them into slices
- You lightly salt the tomato slices on each side with fine salt (very important)
- You put these salted slices on a grid, and you let them rest for 1 hour if possible, 30 minutes minimum

tomates en tranches

Doing it this way will have 2 effects:

1) The fine salt in contact with the tomato slices, will pump some of the water that will fall under the grill, which will "dry" the tomatoes a little, and all this water will not go into your salad afterwards.
2) The salt will enhance the taste of your tomatoes

After the resting time, drain carefully the slices, continue your tomato salad as you were used to, but think about reducing or removing the salt from your sauce, since you bring it with the tomatoes, and we must always be careful with salt in our diet.

This way of proceeding can also be applied for stuffed tomatoes for example: once hollowed out, salt the inside and put them upside down on a grid for 1 hour. Then use as usual.

To sum up: Before using tomatoes in a recipe, especially raw, it is always better to salt them with fine salt, and let them rest for a good hour so that the excess vegetation water escapes, and then use them normally.

What to do with the tomato water recovered in this way? Put it in a closed jar in the fridge, and pour it into a sauce or the cooking of your next recipe based on cooked tomatoes. Or... make yourself an amazing, clear Bloody-Mary!

Lasts posts

Hot Emulsified Sauces

In French cuisine, sauces are a very important part of a recipe—not just a side dish. In fact, they’re so important that, especially since the time of Auguste Escoffier, they’ve been classified into categories. And among these categories are “hot emulsified sauces,” or lukewarm ones. ...
September 9^th 20268545

Hot Dishes and Cold Dishes

When plating or serving a dish—whether hot or cold—on a plate, it’s very important to make sure they’re both the right temperature; in other words: if the dish is hot, the plate should be hot, and conversely, if the dish is cold, the plate should be cold. Is this really important? Let’s...
September 2^nd 20267913

In baking, cold is your friend

When you bake at home—especially when making pie crusts—you’ve probably noticed that it’s quite difficult to work with the dough when it’s hot. It gets soft, is hard to roll out, and breaks or crumples very easily. And this doesn’t just happen when it’s hot—even in a comfortable...
August 26^th 20268255

With vinegar?

When you buy a jar of pickles labeled “in vinegar,” you’re looking for their tangy, crunchy flavor to go with cold cuts, sandwiches, or salads. You expect to find small gherkins preserved in vinegar, with salt and herbs, but is that really the case?
July 15^th 20261,8064.8

Congratulate the chef

You've just finished a meal that you really enjoyed. The server approaches with the usual question: “How was it?” And then, as a natural reflex, you simply reply, “Yes, it was very good.” However, when the meal was truly outstanding, this brief exchange deserves a little more. .
July 7^th 20261,295 35

See all posts Random post RSS feeds

Steam for baking bread

What does steam have to do with bread-making? This is not only a bakers' secret, it is something you might not think of at all: if you make bread and bake it like a cake, you will end up with bread, but pale and with a thick, hard crust – a long way from the golden-brown crusty loaf you had in...
June 16^th 2021151 K4.5

When should you salt?

In the kitchen, we salt very frequently, almost all the time, and we must be careful because this salt can influence the texture of what you are cooking. I'm not going to talk about the amount of salt here, that's for another time, but rather about : When do you salt?
August 13^th 201918 K4.5

How to break eggs properly?

It is a very common gesture in pastry, bakery and of course cooking: breaking eggs to incorporate them into a recipe. You have eggs (which professionals call "shell eggs" to differentiate them from liquid eggs in cartons or cans), and you must break them to incorporate the contents into your...
June 26^th 202117 K4.8

Parsley stems

Parsley, whether curly or flat, is a delicious ingredient in many recipes, where it is used both raw and cooked. When used raw, in a salad for example, where it always provides, alone or with other herbs, a remarkable freshness, only the leaves are kept. And when used cooked?
July 28^th 202511 K 13

A little leftover butter

Very often when you're making a cake, your recipe will tell you to melt some butter and mix it into the batter - a classic for cookies, cakes, moelleux and the like. And every time you do this, you'll have to butter the baking tin to prevent the dough from sticking during baking. Naturally,...
April 16^th 20262,8425