The Little Pizza Cookbook by Murdoch Books Test Kitchen

Author:Murdoch Books Test Kitchen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
Published: 2017-11-16T05:00:00+00:00

Tomatoes

When the Spanish initially brought the tomato back to Europe, it was mostly used as a decorative plant. The Neapolitans were the first Europeans to embrace this new fruit, growing them from seeds brought from the New World, and it was in Naples that the tomato transformed the pizza.

Although botanically a fruit, the tomato, another gift of inestimable value to the world’s cuisines—especially Italian—from South America, is used mainly as a vegetable. So thoroughly has the tomato been assimilated that it’s difficult to imagine life in the Western world (no tomato sauce or pizza!) before it arrived in Naples in the sixteenth century. First, people thought of it as a medicinal plant, and it took a generation before it began to appear on the table. Today, tomatoes are grown worldwide, America and Italy being the largest producers for canning, sauces, pastes and purées. There are more than 1,000 varieties, in numerous sizes, shapes and colours. Most varieties are red, although others are yellow or pink. Unripe green tomatoes are used in pickles and chutneys.

The best flavoured are those that are vine-ripened. Tomatoes should be firm and brightly coloured, with no wrinkles and a strong tomato smell, and should be eaten immediately. Buy only in small quantities (unless making sauce), or buy some greener than others. For salads and pasta sauces, buy only the reddest, ripest tomatoes. Remember, uniformity of shape or colour has no relation to flavour, only to marketing.

There are several main types of tomatoes:

Cherry tomatoes: Come in various sizes but essentially are a tiny variety of tomato. Some are red, others are yellow and some are pear shaped. Good for salads or used whole or halved in stews and pasta sauces.

Roma (plum) tomatoes: Commercially used for canning and drying. They have few seeds and a dry flesh which makes them ideal in sauces or purées.

Beef steak tomatoes: These are larger tomatoes, either smooth and rounded or more irregular with ridges. Can be used for stuffing or in salads.

Round tomatoes: The most common tomato commercially bred to be round and red. Can be bought vine-ripened, on the vine or in different varieties liked the striped tigerella, yellow or orange coloured. An all-purpose tomato.

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