Synopsis: Today’s post will be short and sweet. Due to the absence of an expected food order this morning, our class was forced to improvise with whatever we had in the freezer and dry storage. And as a result, our team was stuck doing a lot of random prep work throughout the day. So I don’t have a new recipe for you today, but we did do a tomato concasse, which is a handy technique to know. (Pronounced kon-kah-SAY).
Tomato concasse is simply a peeled, seeded, and diced tomato. Removing the peel and seeds leaves you with only the red flesh of the tomato and none of the messiness. If you ever want to do a tomato dice, this is the way to do it. Try making salsa with a tomato concasse – it comes out nice and clean.
Technique: First, get a pot of water boiling. Core the tomato by cutting a tight circle around the stem, pointing towards the center at all times. Now blanch the tomato – dip it in the boiling water for approximately 10-15 seconds, and then take it out and dip it into cold water. This will free up the skin and allow you to peel it off easily. Now comes the fun part – cut the tomato in half horizontally, exposing all of the sections. Now squish it! (Preferably over a bowl or garbage can or something, but whatever.) Just pick it up and squish it with your hand. If you’re too squeamish, let your kids do it or something. This will get rid of just about all of the seeds and pulp. Now you can dice the tomato flesh to your heart’s content.
If you like, you can use the peels and seeds for a stock or soup flavoring. Waste not, want not, right? Use your creativity.