Image by freakgirl via Flickr The cherry tomatoes have been going gangbusters this year. We’ve gotten so many that I hardly know what to do with them all. I have been eating them every day and giving them away, and still there are more to use up.
Yesterday I wanted to make a quick and easy lunch, and pretty much all I had to eat were cherry tomatoes and cheese. I noticed a recipe in a recent issue of Cook’s Illustrated for cherry tomato salad, so I decided to check it out to see if it had anything new to offer.
Once I read the recipe, I knew it was a deal breaker. Because cherry tomato salads are way too juicy–or so the article claimed–the recipe called for first spinning the quartered tomatoes in a salad spinner to remove all the pulp. Then you had to cook the pulp with the oil and vinegar to create the salad dressing.
Maybe this technique is super-delicious. I’ll never know, because I won’t go through all that just to make a salad. Would you?
I never had complaints about cherry tomato salads being too juicy before. I just didn’t realize this was a big problem. I think the pulp is the best part of the cherry tomato. Eating a cherry tomato right off the vine is like eating candy. In fact, that’s often how I do eat them, handfuls out of the bowl, like candy.
Here’s how I made my cherry tomato salad: simply and quickly. It was a wonderfully juicy, flavorful salad that was ready in 5 minutes and made a great lunch. You could also use it as a pasta sauce or topping for bruschetta.
Cherry Tomato Salad
Time to make: ~5 minutes
- Halve enough cherry tomatoes to feed the people you’re feeding (about 1 cup per serving).
- Sprinkle with salt to taste.
- Toss the tomatoes with a small amount of olive oil and balsamic vinegar until well coated (eyeball it–I used about ½-1 tbsp. of each per serving).
- Sprinkle with minced basil and crumbled goat cheese or a similar cheese.
- Serve.
Tagged: Cooks Illustrated, Italian, Salads, Tomatoes
