Every day during the summer, at 6:56 am and 8:43 am, Marion Sauveur gives you an idea of a recipe to brighten up your taste buds. For this first summer meeting, make room for a meal on vacation, tomatoes, cook like a tartare.
Marion Sauveur, we will meet you every morning this summer to tell us about the products of our beautiful French terroir. Today you are cooking the tomato.
The tomato we take for a vegetable, but which is a fruit from a botanical point of view. It comes from Peru. It was the Incas who were the first to cultivate and eat it. In France, it arrived in the 16th century, but not on our plates. It was used as an ornamental plant in gardens.
But above all it is a summer fruit, to be enjoyed between mid-June and mid-October. The tomato needs to soak up the sun: heat and light. And the terroir is far from trivial. This is what allows it to develop all of its aromas. A tomato in winter will be bland and floury, while in summer it will be tasty and fleshy.
How do you suggest we cook it?
As a tartare, to change the tomato salad. And it's perfect at the start of the season with slightly firm tomatoes. We start by peeling the tomatoes: we say “worldly”. We make a small cross at the base of the tomato. The tomatoes are then immersed in boiling water for thirty seconds, before putting them in ice water to stop cooking. The skin comes off on its own and especially the tomato is not cooked. We cut the tomato in half, remove the seeds, then cut them into small dice. And let the juice drain. But beware, we don't throw it away: we recover it. It's so good for making a dressing or for a gazpacho.
A red onion and basil leaves are very finely chopped. To add flavor to your tartare: you can add a little finely detailed fresh ginger in small cubes. We mix everything with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. We circle it on the plate or place two large tablespoons, with for freshness, a few zest of a lime. And above all, it is served chilled with toast.
The ingredients of the recipe
3 tomatoes
1 red onion
Basil
Salt
Pepper
Optional: half a ginger root and a lime
For those who are on vacation, and who do not want to cook, you would not have an address to advise us to taste this tomato tartare?
If you are on vacation in Lot-et-Garonne, I advise you to go to Marmande, named after an old tomato, which is quite sweet and delicious Provencal. Stop by Annabelle Boat, in her restaurant "Boat aux saveurs". She will prepare her plate around the tomato: with a celery and tabasco tartare served with a tomato sorbet, a crushed tomato with savory, cherry tomatoes sautéed with basil and a lemon-thyme tomato sauce. It is served with lean, an unknown white fish with firm and tasty flesh.