I never know which tomatoes (fresh, tinned etc) to use for what. Help!
Rob, London E11
You’re really looking at five options, Rob: fresh, tinned, passata (pureed and sieved tomato sauce), concentrate (or puree) and sun-dried. Let’s park sun-dried tomatoes, because, as Jacob Kenedy, chef-owner of Bocca di Lupo in London, notes, they’re more a “standalone ingredient, so eat as is or chop and put through something”. Fresh, however, are in season now, and their quality will depend on where you live and where you’re buying them. “If I’m in a hot country, where they have really good tomatoes, I tend almost exclusively to use fresh, whether they’re for a salad, sauce or stew,” Kenedy says. In the UK, however, “it’s harder to get those flavoursome tomatoes, especially at the supermarket”.
There are, of course, scenarios where only fresh will do. Sophia Massarella, who is behind Polentina in east London, puts “nice, fat, juicy Sorrento tomatoes from Campania” to work in pomodori col riso (tomatoes stuffed with rice and herbs), salads (“panzanella is amazing made with these, bull’s heart or heirloom British tomatoes’’) and sauces. “Over the summer, I always make a sauce with fresh and tinned tomatoes for parmigiana,” she says, explaining that the tinned bring “a bit of savoury, whereas just fresh alone can be too sweet”.
Essentially, Kenedy says, if you’re cooking and reducing a sauce, “unless you’re extremely lucky and can get really good fresh tomatoes, or grow your own, you’ll often be better off with something from a tin, jar or tube”.
When it comes to tins, there is a common school of thought that whole plum tomatoes are the best bet. Massarella agrees: “Use peeled whole ones, because their texture stays nicer, and you can always crush them up later, anyway.” Kenedy, meanwhile, reserves whole tinned tomatoes for when he wants them to “pretty much disappear into a dish”, otherwise he goes for chopped – but not the ones mixed with, say, herbs or garlic: “Avoid those like the plague, because they’re cooked to shit and taste muddy.” Either way, he recommends cooking them right down: “If they’re for tomato sauce, until the oil rises, or until they’re quite dry – you can always rehydrate them with water.”
Deciding between tinned and passata, meanwhile, is more a question of texture. “Passata is smooth, so if you’re making soup, you won’t have to blend it,” Kenedy says. “And if you’re making a sauce and want it to have little bits in, go for tinned.” The main thing to remember about passata is that it will add bulk and dilute whatever it is you’re cooking, so if you’re more in the market for a kick of tomato flavour without the liquid – in a stew scenario, for instance – go for concentrate instead.
The world of tins and tubes is, admittedly, vast, and takes some navigating. “If you’re in a supermarket, you can be guided a bit by price,” Kenedy says. “In a smaller retail environment, ask the people who work there, which is what I do.” According to Massarella, a safe choice would be the Antonella brand from Sardinia, though they do come at a premium (£2.80 a tin, as opposed to about 60p for supermarket own-brand ones): “Their tinned tomatoes and passata are fantastic and have a nice acidity, so you never have to add sugar.” Sweet.
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