Growing up in Northern California, I don’t remember much about the ways that foods were associated with seasons. Blessed with a relatively mild, year-round climate, we certainly still enjoyed certain items — popsicles in summer, soups in winter — when the weather called for it. But there’s a lack of urgency about these things when you live in a place that produces so much fresh, seasonal produce and where the concepts of “hot” and “cold” matter more in the scheme of whether or not you remembered to bring a long-sleeved layer to dinner than any visceral, survival-level temperature swing.
When there are more pronounced seasons, there are, likewise, more tangible food seasons. This is tomato season. We’re in the thick of it, but we won’t be for much longer. It is the time to indulge; possibly to overdo it.
Humans were (and are) meant to eat the things that grow in-season. A mealy, flavorless, mid-January tomato from some Ontarian greenhouse will necessarily not taste as good as a fresh, outdoor-grown tomato. It doesn’t matter how good the industrial scale farming gets. The tongue and the stomach and the guts and the entire body know better. The sweet burst of a ripe, summer tomato elicits a primal satisfaction, the same as a truly fresh piece of fish, that just can’t be faked.
But let’s not just celebrate those big, classic, beefy boys. There are all sorts of tomatoes out there. We should devour them all, while there’s time.
So let’s go. Let’s lean in. Let’s make tomatoes into two wonderful dishes, both simple enough but delicious enough to make over and over again until the farmers market tables run out of the good stuff.
Classic Tomato Sandwiches
Serves 2
1 large, ripe heirloom tomato, any color
4 slices thick brioche
3 tbsp mayonnaise
Handful basil, chopped
Salt & pepper
When picking your tomato, aim for something not too squatty. You want it to be fat and round in the middle, because that’s where we’re going to be pulling from. You can slice your tomato as thickly as you’d like; if you’re feeling particularly gaudy, you could even get two tomatoes and just take an entire, more-than-inch-thick single round from each. But we generally aim for about a half inch thickness.
Lay your tomato on its side and slice off the bottom ¼ inch and enough from the top to clear the indentation of the stem by ¼ inch. Slice your remaining round in half, using one round slice for each sandwich. (You may still be left with a bit of dense, white flesh in the upper round, which you can cut around with a knife and discard.)
Toast your bread. As it is toasting, add your basil to your mayonnaise and stir vigorously, fully incorporating the two and releasing the herb oils into your spread. Slather one or both pieces of your bread (dealer’s choice) generously, center your tomato, and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Close your sandwich. Take remaining viable tomato trimmings and slice into bite-size pieces, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and serve alongside your sandwich.
Micah’s Summer Sauce
Serves 3-4
1 pound dried bucatini
3 tbsp butter
2 pints sungold tomatoes
1 sweet yellow or white onion, chopped
8 cloves garlic, sliced
1 tsp Calabrian chilis (or more, for more heat)
3 tbsp tomato paste
1 cup cheap white wine
½ cup whole milk or ¼ cup cream
1 cup grated parmesan cheese
Fresh basil
½ ball of burrata per person
This is my wife’s riff on Molly Baz’s similarly themed recipe, but with a different choice of noodle, cooking booze, and finishing touch.
Boil a large pot of salted water. Slice your sungolds in half, across the globe, reserving one cup of them to the side. Heat butter in a dutch oven on medium heat until frothing, then add onions and a pinch of salt, stirring occasionally, cooking 5-10 minutes until soft and translucent. Add garlic and cook 1 minute until fragrant. Add tomato paste and Calabrian chilis, stirring constantly in pot until the paste takes on a deep, brick red color, 2-3 minutes. Add cup of white wine and stir to deglaze pot.
Drop your pasta when the water is ready and cook to 1 minute shy of its prescribed cook time. In a separate glass, pour ¼ cup of pasta water and your milk or cream, to temper. Add this mixture to your pot with all but your reserved sungolds and give everything a good stir. Continue to season generously with salt, and taste as you go. When the pasta is ready, use tongs to transfer it to your dutch oven and mix into the sauce. Stir in parmesan and, if your sauce is getting too tight, drizzle in more pasta water until it reaches the desired glossiness. Remove from heat and stir in remaining sungolds.
Serve in bowls with fresh basil, half a torn ball of burrata, a pinch of flaky sea salt and a drizzle of your best olive oil.
What are your favorite tomato recipes? Share them below and let’s go raid the farmers market early this weekend.
Mmmm, the pasta dish sounds amazing, and quite similar to one I had in Italy earlier this summer!
I wish I had recipes to share - I sometimes make up dishes so I have no quantities (or even a sense of them). And they aren't always the same each time I try to recreate them. What I would have to share, then, is something like, there's a thing I do with maybe a pound of loose hot Italian sausage, halves of different colored bell peppers sliced in strips, garlic (doesn't matter how much), maybe half a medium onion sliced in strips, and lots of tomatoes with some oregano thrown in towards the end finished with roughly chopped basil before serving. Sometimes I also throw in white wine. Oh, and I make it with whatever pasta I have on hand if I'm not making it fresh and add some pasta water to the dish. All I know is, it's delightful. I based it off of a dish a friend of mine used to make that she called "sausage penne" that was just sausage and tomatoes and penne and maybe salt? But penne is considered the lowest form of pasta by the people in my house, so we still call it sausage penne but there is nary a penne in sight of this dish. And there is much more flavor.