Meats and Sausages
Preparing Tomatoes
There are people who never peeled or seeded tomato, others do it all the time. You may peel tomato for the baby, you may peel and seed tomatoes when making a sauce or a paste. Some people claim that seeds impart bitter flavor, others argue that this is not true so the subject if for discussion. Most of us will probably agree that the skin is not the best part of the tomato, however, for most applications such as adding tomatoes to a salad, the skin and the seeds are left intact.
How to Peel Tomatoes
Make a cross cut on the bottom of tomato. This will facilitate the peeling.
Notched tomatoes.
Bring water to a low boil, insert tomatoes for about 20 seconds. Do not do more than 4 tomatoes at the time. Using draining spoon helps a lot.
The slit will widen indicating that tomato is ready for peeling.
Place tomato in icy cold water to prevent cooking.
The skin will come off easily.
How to Seed Tomatoes
Blossom end can be removed before cutting or later.
Make equatorial cut across large tomato.
Seeds and surrounding gel are locked in individual compartments.
Cut plum tomatoes lengthwise.
Seeds and surrounding gel are locked in individual compartments.
Peeled tomatoes are even easier to seed. Cut them across as described above.
Place fine strainer over bowl. Squeeze tomatoes. The seeds with gel will break loose.
What remains is the skinless solid tomato pulp which can be easily sliced or diced.
Any remaining seeds can be removed with a teaspoon. You could remove seeds from all pockets with a spoon, but squeezing the seeds out is faster.
Tomato seeds and gel.
Gel can be pushed with a spoon through the strainer.
What remains is a liquid consisting of gel, water and some tomato juice. The seeds are discarded.
Filtering seeds.
Seeds are discarded. The pulp will be cooked again with other ingredients.
