5 New Ways to Enjoy Tomatoes (Recipes)

We are drowning in tomatoes. Just look at this. This is from today's harvest. We have cherry tomatoes. We have heirloom tomatoes. I mean, look at this big guy. We've had tomato mozzarella salads, cherry tomato pastas, salsas, tomato sauces, soups, and we are tired of it. And you probably are too. So today we're going to show you five new and interesting ways to use your tomatoes. Tomato bacon jam. This one is going to be delicious. This is a rustic recipe, no coring, no peeling. I just call it what lazy people. Chop up the bacon, then put it in a cold pot and cook it until all the fat is rendered. Stir occasionally and don't let it burn. You can see when it starts to foam and it's pretty dark brown and that's when the bacon is done. Drain all the fat, keep all that good stuff you can use it for cooking other dishes later, and set the bacon aside to cool. Put real ripe tomatoes in a food processor and pulse it. This is the consistency you're looking for. It's kind of like a salsa consistency. And I kept all the delicious fond on the bottom. Now put your tomatoes in the pot and put all your spices in. We have sugar, minced ginger, ground cumin, lemon juice, cinnamon, ground cloves, salt, and some red pepper flakes and cayenne pepper. This will add a nice kick to your jam. And of course you can adjust it to whatever you like. Bring it up to a boil, then turn it down to a simmer. And now put that bacon back in. This cooks for about an hour long. You have to keep stirring every now and then and once it reaches jam consistency, you can turn the flame off. Put it aside and let it cool and now you can put it in your jars and or serve it as is. This keeps for about a week or if you can it then it can keep for like three, four months. It's sweet, it's savory, the bacon comes through, the flavor comes through, the cumin, the spices are so good. This is a plum flavored pickled cherry tomato. It's a Taiwanese appetizer. It's served cold, it's sweet, sour, and a little bit salty, and it's the perfect refreshing palate cleanser. We're going to use these salted dried plums. In Chinese they're called huamei. You usually have them when you're traveling or you feel carsick or seasick and these are a little salty and sour. First you boil the water and you add in the rock sugar and the plums. The sugar has completely melted and the water is a light brown so you can turn the heat off. Give this a little taste to see if it's sweet enough for you. It's pretty good already. I'm gonna add a little bit more honey for some aroma. Now set this aside to cool. Bring another pot of water to boil. Let's work on the cherry tomatoes. Take off the stems and cut little crosses on the ends of the tomatoes. Don't go too deep, this is only so you can peel the skin off easily afterwards. This step is going to happen really fast so make sure you have a bowl of ice water ready. We're going to put our tomatoes in our boiling water. Have it boil for 30 seconds. You don't want it to boil any longer because it will turn mushy. And let that sit for about three minutes. Look, the skin is basically off. And for the stubborn ones, you can use a knife and slowly peel the skin. Put your tomatoes into a container and pour your plum syrup into that container as well. Make sure it covers the tomatoes and if it doesn't you can pour in some cold water on top just so it covers. Now close the lid and put it in the fridge overnight. This one I'm really curious of what it's gonna taste like. That's really good. It's got the plum flavour, it's sweet and it just bursts in your mouth. It's so refreshing. Tomato rice. This recipe is so simple there's actually no cooking involved. Get a super ripe tomato, cut out the stem. These cracks are from too much water from the rain, nothing wrong with it. Alright stems out. Oh smells so sweet. With the rice use a little less water than you usually would because the tomato has a lot of water content. Basically add in some olive oil, salt, pepper and that's about it. You put this tomato right in the middle, stem side down and just cook it how you would normally and when it's ready mix it thoroughly. You can see all the juices blending in with the rice. It smells so good. All the essence of the tomato is basically in the rice. It's a little savory, a little sweet and a little sour. Now tomato and eggs is a famous Chinese dish. Every household makes it but how about tomato and egg noodles. Just roughly chop them, cut out the white stem part. Since these are going to be in soup doesn't really matter if they don't look pretty right now. Whisk up your eggs and you're basically ready to go. Heat up your wok with some oil then pour in your eggs. Oh whoops my wok is not very hot then but it's okay, it's okay. Slowly flip it. When it's about 60% cooked take it off the wok. Now add in more oil and cook down your tomatoes. At this point you can add some salt to bring out the flavors of the tomatoes. While that's cooking boil some water and put in your noodles. The tomatoes have cooked down quite a bit. Now I will drain my noodles and then I'll run it through cold water so it doesn't stick together. I like to use the starchy water from the noodle for my soup so it's thick. So I put a couple of scoops in there and I'll also put a little bit of chicken stock for extra flavor. Now I'll add the eggs back in, mix it all together, add a bit of sugar, white pepper, sesame oil and some salt. With the sugar and salt it really depends on how your tomatoes taste so make sure you taste the sauce first. Now that it's ready I'll add in the final touch of scallions. We pour in this delicious thick soup onto our noodles. This is extra saucy. You can adjust it according to if you like it thicker or thinner, add more stock. Such good flavor. The tomato broth is so rich and this just took me like 10 minutes to make. It's super easy. Tomato and beef. This is a little different from what we usually do. We usually stir fry the beef but this time we're going to cook it velvet style. Today we're using flank steak and because it's not a thick cut we're going to butterfly it. For the first slice you cut it almost all the way through, then you cut the second slice all the way through and now you can spread it and it'll be a bigger piece. Try to make the slices as thin as you can. Now that's done let's marinate the meat. We add some soy, Shaoxing wine, oil, sesame oil, water. The water is basically to make sure the beef absorbs it again so it's extra tender and a good amount of cornstarch. Massage it well so everything is absorbed into the meat and now add some more oil on top to seal it and let it marinate for 30 minutes. Okay let's cut the rest of our ingredients. This is a massive tomato so we need to cut more than quarters. Slice the onions. In a cold wok add in your minced garlic and cook it until it's fragrant. Now add in the onions and once it starts to become soft you can add in your tomatoes. Once it comes to a boil you can turn it down to medium and let it slowly cook out. Depending on how much tomatoes you have and how juicy your tomatoes are, if you don't have enough juice in your tomatoes you can use broth and once you reach the consistency that you like you can add in the beef. We add it in one at a time in a single layer and try not to overlap them. Once you put it in don't move it, wait until the coating sets. Once it sets you can push it a bit, add some more liquid on top, don't move it too much because the coating will come off. The cornstarch on your beef will help thicken the sauce, give it a little taste and salt to your liking. This looks so good, it is so saucy, it's gonna be perfect with rice. Mmm this beef is so soft and velvety, it's such a lovely texture. If you like this video make sure to check out our fried rice video, we'll show you four ways to make fried rice and tell us how you make your tomatoes in the comments below.