How to do it: cutting a tomato

Say wine, snacks or haute cuisine and the food lovers of online food magazine FavorFlav know where to drink, how to eat and what to cook. This time our chefs serve you: this is how to cut tomatoes best.

Although you can find tomatoes all year round, they are naturally starting to taste their best now. On your avocado toast, next to your fried eggs, in the caprese or lastly in the pasta salad; tomatoes are top. But if you always tackle them a bit randomly with a dull knife, you need to read these tips, because for every type of preparation you can cut or chop tomatoes the right way.

I can't imagine spring and summer without homemade salsa, which I then scoop high on a tortilla chip and where half falls off before it reaches my mouth. Doesn't matter. But those diced tomatoes, that's where most of the work is. Read here how to cut tomatoes best for every purpose.

The right tools

If you want to do it right and not ruin your summer tomato haul, a very sharp serrated tomato knife is indispensable. Also, never use it for anything else so it doesn't get dull and you end up just denting your tomato a bit. A paring knife (that small non-serrated pointed kitchen knife) is handy too, and I personally have boards in different sizes with a juice groove, or in this case a tomato juice groove. I don't like that moisture dripping off the board, ending up underneath, and then slowly disappearing under all the kitchen appliances on the counter to never be wiped up again.

Concise

Whatever you are going to use your tomato for, you probably want to remove the hard white piece under the crown first. You use that small paring knife for this. Hold your tomato with one hand on the board and cut out the core at an angle with the tip of the knife while you rotate the tomato. After this, you can go in any direction with your tomato.

Wedges

If you manage to get really great tomatoes, they need little more than the best olive oil and a bit of Maldon salt. Cut the tomatoes (core removed) in half and then into wedges. Drizzle and sprinkle, and your tomato salad is ready. We also won't turn down adding a shallot in finely sliced rings.

Slices

Essential for the tastiest burgers, the aforementioned caprese or such a beautiful vegetable millefeuille. Hold the tomato on its side on the board, curve the tips of your fingers (of the hand holding the tomato) inward and cut slices with your serrated knife to the desired thickness.

Seedless

This is my go-to for that salsa. I don't want it too wet, otherwise the chips get soggy too quickly and the inside of a tomato, no matter how delicious umami those seeds in their moisture are, makes the salsa too watery. For this method, you don't need to remove the core first because you cut it away with the seeds. First, cut the tomato into small wedges, hold the wedge by the core side and move your knife flat along the fleshy edge under the seeds towards the core. That piece, including the core, you cut away last. The ‘empty’ piece of tomato you have left can then be cut into thin strips and then into small cubes.

Stuffed

Deliciously retro to stuff your vegetables (although tomatoes are fruits) is of course also possible. For that, you need to hollow out the tomato and the easiest way to do that is to first cut off the top, then carefully use your paring knife to loosen the inside around the seed cavities from the flesh and then carefully scoop it out with a spoon. Ideal for this healthy shrimp-tomato recipe.

Peeled

For warm preparations with fresh tomato, it is almost always tastier to remove the skin so you don't have to pick all those curled hard loose skins out later. You can submerge them in a pot of boiling water and then keep them in a bowl of ice water, but you can also just boil water in a full kettle or kettle, score the tomatoes at the bottom, place them in a colander and slowly pour the boiling water over them. With the knife, you then start at the points where you made the cross and pull the skins off. Then chop or cut them as you wish, for example into cubes for a light broth with mussels and leeks.

Photo by Marc Mueller on Unsplash