Cold Stuffed Cherry Tomatoes

For the second dish, I cooked cold stuffed tomatoes and somen noodles. I served the stuffed cherry tomatoes on top of a wooden container and garnished with real tomato leaves to create a dish that resembles a tomato field. I also used the fresh and beautifully colored skin of the cherry tomatoes as decoration. It is also recommended that you give a cooling impression by spraying water droplets just before serving. Cold somen noodles are placed on the second tier, and at the bottom, I placed the seasoned broth that I cooked the tomatoes with and made it into the dipping sauce for the somen noodles. Initially, I thought of seasoning the dashi broth with light soy sauce and mirin but decided to cook with only the dashi broth for this recipe. It tasted delicious because the “umami” flavor melted from the tomato and chicken. That is why I decided to season using only the main ingredients themselves. The dipping sauce for somen noodles is made of the broth that was used for cooking the tomatoes, with a little salt added. We often perspire a lot in summer, so it is better to season with a little bit of saltiness. First of all, enjoy a bite of the stuffed cherry tomato. Then, enjoy the somen noodles. When making this dish at home using a larger tomato, it won’t take much time to stuff each tomato. In this case, please cook for a slightly longer time.

Recipe

・Cherry tomatoes・・・1pack
・Minced chicken meat・・・80g
・Onion・・1/8 piece
・Japanese Soup Stock *(Dashi)・・・as much as needed
・Salt

1/Boil plenty of water in a pan.
2/Make a cross-cut on the bottom of the tomatoes. Then, boil them for 10 seconds and scoop them into iced water and peel.
3/Cut off the calyx of the tomato and empty the contents with a teaspoon, but do not discard them. Strain this removed content with a colander, separating them into seeds and juice. Discard the seeds and keep the juice, for it will be added when you cook the tomatoes.
4/Combine the finely chopped onion, minced chicken, and salt into a bowl and mix well. Stuff it in the hollowed tomatoes and wrap them with gauze to prevent the stuffing from coming out.
5/Put “4” in a pan with Dashi and the juice of “3”, then heat. When it boils, turn it to low heat and simmer for 7 minutes. Taste and add salt if necessary, then take the pan off the fire and place it into ice water to cool instantly. Once cooled, chill it in the refrigerator.
6/Serve the well-chilled tomatoes on a plate. And it’s done!

• To make stuffed tomatoes, it is better to use harder tomatoes that are not too ripe to avoid collapsing while it’s being cooked.
• If you feel that it is difficult to stuff the minced chicken in the cherry tomatoes, try using a pastry piping bag for easier insertion.
• When cooking tomatoes, if the heat is too high, the tomatoes will collapse and the contents will spill out, making the broth cloudy. For a beautiful finish, simmer at a temperature slightly below boiling point.
• It is also refreshing and tasty when you add ginger or shiso (perilla) to the minced chicken as an alternative option.

Chef. Miyuki Shigemura

Crafts used for the meal

Enpo Saryo