China · Home-style
Tomatoes with Sugar
Tomatoes skinned with a quick scald, cut into wedges and layered with sugar. Chilled briefly, it is sharp, sweet and watery in the way only summer tomatoes are.
The scald trick lets a tomato shed its skin without going soft, which is the whole point of this dish, and the sugar draws out the juice that is usually thrown away. Served cold after a short spell in the fridge, it belongs to the hot season rather than the cold. Many households cut the tomato along its seams to keep more of the juice in the bowl.
Ingredients
- tomatoes100 g
- sugar20 g
Directions
- 1
Score the skin of each tomato in a star pattern with a knife.
- 2
Push a chopstick into the base of the tomato and turn it over a gas flame for 10 seconds (or pour boiling water over it for 30 seconds), until the skin curls back.
- 3
Take the tomato's clothes off.
- 4
Cut the tomato into eighths (cutting along the seams keeps more of the juice), remove the stem end and set aside.
- 5
Once everything is cut, arrange the tomatoes in an even layer in a dish.
- 6
Scatter over the sugar, repeating the layer until all the tomatoes are used.
- 7
Put it in the fridge to chill for 10 minutes.
- 8
A plate of tomatoes with sugar is ready, tasty and sharp and sweet, cooling and refreshing in summer.
Source: HowToCook · WorldBite adaptation · Unlicense source text; bilingual recipe adapted by WorldBite.