Summer Spooning

We love to love our tomatoes. When we find plump beauties at our favorite farmer’s stand we begin a slow but brief affair, one of pampering, seduction and ultimately consumption. Like any fruit, tomatoes are best when they are ripe so we like to lay ours down to rest for a few days sometime a whole week before admiring their simple wiles with olive oil and a little salt.
For this recipe, we wanted to capture the undeniably aphrodesiacical flavor of a perfectly ripe tomato and set it against other flavors that undeniably represent the sweetness of a summer day: basil and watermelon. When you try this out at home do yourself a favor and let your tomatoes lay out at room temperature until they are just starting to soften. You’ll be happy you did. We were so happy with the results that we batched out three-dozen servings and served them at the opening of our recent opus: a six course menu of salad inspired fare for our favorite ladies.

4 Momotaro tomatoes
1/4-cup kalamata olive oil
1 seedless watermelon
Sea salt to taste
1 bunch opal (purple) basil
Cheese Cloth
1. Quarter your ripe tomatoes, and blend them until smooth with a blender or immersion blender.
2. Line a fine mesh strainer with cheesecloth, and place over a mixing bowl. Dump the puree’d tomatoes in the strainer and let the flavor drip away. If the liquid stops flowing through, take a spoon and gently scrape the skin and seed particles from the strainer.
3. Whisk in the olive oil in a slow and steady stream. Salt the mixture to your liking, making sure that the salt level doesn’t overshadow the sweetness of the tomato.
4. Make a 1/4″ dice of the watermelon, one or two small cubes per person.
5. Serve in a Miso spoon: 1/2 spoonful of tomato puree, a few cubes of watermelon, and a small snippet of opal basil.
Beverage: Saison Dupont’s Avril
Soundtrack: Soundgarden’s Spoonman. (yes we did)