Plum Tomatoes

The Plum Tomato. Whether you get your veggies from an open-air market on 30th Avenue, a renovated C-Town Tow To T, or if you don't live in my cosy little burg at all (gasp), one vegetable will stand out... like a sore thumb. The Plum Tomato. It will be ridiculously cheap. It will be off-color. It will be mottled with squishy spots. And there will be a pile the size of the trash heap in Fraggle Rock of it. Why do I write about it then? Well... its tasty, and it is versatile. Raw, it goes great with roasted peppers, prosciutto and mozzarella. maybe some slices with bleu cheese dressing and iceberg lettuce. Or, even better, as the base ingredient of simple and amazing sauces for beef and pasta. After sauteing a medium standard yellow onion minced fine in extra virgin olive oil with about 4 cloves (or 30 or 96) of garlic add about 6-10 minced plum tomatoes to the pan on medium heat and slowly cook down with kosher salt and ground pepper. A little red pepper too with the onions if you want a little added pop. The sauce will get a nice orangy color once the tomatoes really break down (and unless you are cooking for Her Majesty herself don't worry about the benign and delicate plum tomato skins that will come off). Whereas my grandmother's spaghetti sauce will take upwards of 2 hours (and god bless it), this pasta sauce should be ready, in a saucepan, in just over an hour. Add some nice green olives when the tomatoes go in for a nice sauce to pour atop browned skirt or flank steak before covering with tin foil and popping in a 350 degree oven for a while (rings of white onion on top are a really nice addition here). Id imagine that this would work well with chicken breast or thighs as well.

Or, as I will note below... as a simple addition to a recipe for added pop... or more accurately, squish.

Last night, amongst two other recipes that I feel the need to share (in more than one post), I threw together a simple and cheap meal for friends. Seconds were devoured. Whilst canned clams in my macaroni with clams are the main ingredient, I really think the 1" cubes of
plum tomatoes were the star of the show. When you bit down you got a shot of the clam sauce, with a nice fruity, tart taste melded with a fine texture. You could barely see the bits of cooked down tomatoes in the sauce... but boy could you taste them. This recipe feeds 4 people, and can be stretched proportionately.

1 can minced clams... DO NOT DRAIN
1 can whole baby clams... DO NOT DRAIN
unscientifically measured parsley. Grab a handful of tops off the bunch, then mince fine
4-6 garlic cloves minced fine (although Ive never heard of using too much)
1 medium onion minced fine
1 lemon
4-6 Plum Tomatoes, cut in 1'ish cubes. Don't worry about diligently seeding them... no one will care.
1 pinch or more of dried red pepper
kosher salt and fresh black pepper
1 tablespoon of olive oil (or a little more depending on how fast the onions suck it up)
juice of one lemon (truly the best expenditure of 1/5th of 1 dollar ever made in New York)
1 box of #8 spaghetti

I like to season my olive oil before I heat it. I don't know if there is any scientific or culinary advantage (or disadvantage) to doing it this way, but there you have it. I add a pinch or two of kosher salt with a pinch of red pepper and a couple grinds of black pepper before I turn on the heat and begin to saute my onions and garlic. Once browned, I throw in my Plum Tomatoes, and allow them to break down, stirring to make sure they don't stick to the pot too much. When I start to feel as if I am worried about them burning, I lower the heat to a simmer and throw my two cans of clams, juice and all into the pot with the parsley. Juice of a whole lemon goes in to give a little more acidity and some more oomph. A little more salt and pepper to round it off.

I let this simmer until, well, until it smells heavily of clams. While it is simmering, put on a pot of salted water, and boil a pound to a pound and a half of plain old #8 spaghetti until al denti. Drain (duh) the spaghetti well, and toss it all into the sauce pot. Stir well to combine and serve with a little parsley on top to garnish. You COULD add a little grated parm to the plate, but that would make my grandmother cry, so I encourage you not to. ;-). Enjoy, and as always, feedback welcome!