When Life Hands You Overripe Tomatoes, Make Tomato Water
Julia Kramer, photo by Alex Lau
Let’s be frank: Greg Vernick’s tomatoes were ugly. Vernick, the chef of Vernick Food & Drink in Philadelphia, had arrived at the Bon Appétit test kitchen with a flat of them, some ripe to the point of nearly bursting, others speckled with nascent mold. If you saw them at a grocery store or farmers’ market, you’d pass over them without a second thought. And yet Vernick could not have looked more pleased.
“As ugly as an overripe tomato looks,” the chef began in defense, “sometimes it yields the most juice and the most sweetness.” The pockmarks of white decay only furthered his argument. “It’s like a wheel of cheese that’s started to take on mold”—a signal of the fruit’s mature flavor. And as anyone who has made the mistake of slicing into a not-quite-ready tomato can attest: “An overripe tomato is far superior than an underripe tomato.”
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Though we would probably have been content to take Vernick at his word, the exacting chef brought with him a pantry’s worth of ingredients to make his case. He brought homemade ketchup of tomatoes, molasses, Worcestershire, rice wine vinegar, onion, garlic, ancho chiles, raisins, sugar salt, and miso. He brought a killer cocktail sauce made with two parts tomatoes for each part grated fresh horseradish. He even brought curds with which to make fresh mozzarella—to be paired with a tomato condiment, of course. But the strategy that was the simplest was perhaps the most profound: If life gives you overripe tomatoes, make tomato water.
THE PROCESS
Okay, yes, we’re not afraid of a little decay, but do rinse the tomatoes and trim away any mold. Chop up the tomatoes (no need to be precise), transfer them to a food processor, and season generously with salt, which will help extract more juices. (Vernick demo’d this technique with about six medium-size tomatoes and about a teaspoon of salt.) If you like, you can add additional flavors to the tomatoes; Vernick uses a stalk of lemongrass. (Too much and, the chef said, it can be “a little ‘Bed, Bath & Beyond.’”) Or just leave it plain and simple—tomatoes and salt. Now blend. Next, set a coffee filter over a sieve, and transfer the purée into the filter. As it drips through the filter, it will yield a tomato consommé.
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“It sounds really fancy,” says Vernick, “but it’s just a play on the word clear.” The key to this process: extreme patience. “Let it hang and drip overnight,” instructs Vernick, “one drop at a time.” (Do not refrigerate it during the process.) “The more you press down on the tomatoes,” says the chef, “the more it will take on a pink hue.” In other words, refrain from agitating. After you’ve watched a movie and gotten a solid eight hours of sleep, return to your beautiful bowl of clarified tomato water, and taste it. Season with cayenne and salt.
What now? At the restaurant, Vernick might spoon it over a delicate arrangement of fresh tuna, uni, and Champagne grapes (below), along with black-rice crackers. But for home cooks (and drinkers), he had a simpler idea: Sub it in for olive juice in a dirty martini. Or take a cue from another tomato-water-appreciating chef, Carlo Mirarchi of Roberta’s, and let it be a summery sauce for seared scallops.
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