Tomatoes are widely used in cooking. They are used as an ingredient in appetizers, first and second courses, salads – both raw and ready-made. Salads with fresh tomatoes, tomato soups, sauces, pizza and pasta with tomato dressing have become quite familiar to us.
How to Cook Tomatoes
Tomatoes are successfully used for cooking various types of canned food. Fruits contain a significant amount of acid, which makes it possible to limit the production of canned food to sterilizing them in boiling water. Depending on what taste the cook wants to achieve, tomatoes can be pickled, salted, boiled sweet sauce, juice or drink. As a rule, sugar, salt, vinegar, citric acid and all kinds of spices are used in any kind of canning. With proper preparation, the product can be stored in a dark, cool place for several years. These preserves are always an excellent addition to side dishes, meat, fish, salads and an independent snack. A well–known tomato product is ketchup, a sweet tomato sauce with seasonings.
Combination with Other Products
Tomato is not desirable to combine with starch-containing and cereal products. It is recommended to eat tomatoes with herbs and vegetables that do not contain starch. It is advised to take tomatoes with proteins and fats, thus improving their assimilation. A useful combination is tomato and avocado, as well as broccoli. The usual combination of tomatoes and cucumbers is not as useful as it seems – the components of these vegetables, according to recent studies, mutually interfere with the assimilation of various components of each other. Tomatoes with liver or olive oil are considered useful combinations.
The Use of Tomatoes in Drinks
The most famous tomato drink, as expected, is tomato juice. It is consumed both in its natural form and with the addition of salt, pepper, celery, Worcestershire sauce, lemon and lime juice. In addition, tomato juice is used as a component of several alcoholic cocktails. Tomatoes can be added to vegetable smoothies based on yogurt, as well as to prepare diluted drinks with spices from them.
Types of Tomatoes
There are hundreds of types of tomatoes – small cherry the size of a grape, huge tomatoes weighing 600-800 grams, juicy for salads and fleshy for pasta, campari and – these are just the most famous of the many varieties. The color of the fruit, in addition to red, can vary from white, orange, yellow, green to purple and chocolate.
How to Choose and Store Tomatoes?
Ripe tomatoes have a rather rich aroma. If there is no smell, most likely the tomatoes were picked unripe. The peduncle should be small. When choosing tomatoes, you need to pay attention to the smoothness of the skin, the absence of cracks, spots and traces of blows. A fully ripe tomato is soft and springy, but you can choose it only if it is consumed immediately. Overripe tomatoes are always good for sauces and soups. In healthy fruits, the skin is thin, and the flesh is monotonous. If white thin veins are visible in the pulp, there are white spots in the core, and it itself is “plastic” to the touch – it means that there are nitrates in the tomato.
The storage conditions of a tomato directly depends on how ripe it is. Room temperature will accelerate the ripening process. Therefore, if you want the tomato to ripen, feel free to leave it warm. Ripe tomatoes are best stored at a temperature of about 12 degrees Celsius. At this temperature, the tomato will cease to ripen, but it will not lose its taste and useful properties.
A wonderful salad, perfect for a festive table. The juiciness of rice and beef, the freshness of vegetables. By the way, a great alternative to olivier for those who want variety. We really liked the salad!
The most elegant and most delicious salad. Without false modesty, I will say that this is a favorite dish on our table! It is simply cooked, but it is eaten very quickly. Each ingredient complements each other, making the salad unique in its own way. It seems to be such simple and affordable products, and the taste is very refined and not hackneyed.
I found this salad recently on one of the forums. Then I looked at the cooking method on various culinary sites, I didn’t find a tomato salad with that name here, so I decided to share and illustrate the recipe. I corrected a couple of ingredients that were specified in the original, but it turned out pretty tasty!
Tomatoes according to this recipe turn out just great! The proportions of spices are perfectly matched to create a wonderful taste and aroma of the dish!
We offer to prepare a delicious salad with ham and prunes with a sauce based on olive mayonnaise. A couple more salads and adoration in the eyes of my husband will become material, he does not even imagine that this kind of salad is associated with competition and will not last forever.
I suggest you try a delicious salad in the Mediterranean style – fried golden potatoes, slices of fleshy ripe tomatoes, pickled crispy onions, salted smoked ham and mustard dressing. That’s how it is in the Mediterranean style causes me some doubts personally, but it is positioned in a Moscow restaurant. I didn’t argue because it was incredibly delicious. Just tweaked, polished to your liking and it turned out perfectly! I recommend it as a full-fledged delicious dinner. And for the arrival of unexpected guests, the salad is good.
Estepona is a place in Spain where my daughter and her grandson spent 1.5 months this summer. And here’s the salad we tried there. Absolutely calmly you can cook it at home, ham can safely replace smoked ham or meat, and voila! Spain is on our table. The salad is very tasty.