The brief, glorious moment when tomatoes are everywhere marks the culinary apex of summer. This moment is especially fleeting for heirloom tomatoes, the high-maintenance wing of the tomato clan. Too watery and delicate to preserve, heirlooms can only be enjoyed raw. Which means they must be enjoyed now.
Heirlooms have shorter shelf lives than “normal” hybrid tomatoes, and they’re harder to grow and less productive, making them more expensive. The heirlooms at my local farmers market are worth every penny. I’ve been a big spender all summer, but my own patch is finally starting to ripen.
These aren’t the lipstick-red, perfectly round slicers you’d put on a sandwich or the dense paste tomatoes I’ll simmer into large batches of sauce in a few weeks. Heirlooms come in as many shapes as clouds and as many colors as the rainbow, with mildly tangy flavors and sweet, earthy aromas.
I keep my heirlooms closer than my friends or enemies, usually on a large plate but not in a pile so I can keep track of which ones are soft. I don’t refrigerate or cook my heirlooms. They’re for room-temperature enjoyment only.
I can’t think of a more delicious way to enjoy a summer heirloom — and summer itself — than a plate of Caprese, the Italian salad that pairs a slice of tomato with a slice of mozzarella and a leaf or two of basil. These accompaniments flatter the heirloom like lime and salt complete a shot of tequila, and they’re just as intoxicating. Beyond this three-ingredient Caprese quorum, most renditions include salt, olive oil and balsamic vinegar, either red or white. I prefer white because it’s just as aromatic but less dominant.
Call me crazy, but I prefer tucking the basil between the tomato and the cheese. On top of the tomato, the basil leaf deflects the oil, salt and vinegar, blocking the proper flavor from developing.
After a week of studying, preparing, consuming and obsessing about Caprese, my garden was depleted, so I went to the farmers market to buy more ingredients. While gathering bunches of basil from a vendor I barely knew, Jamie Drysdale of Blue Coyote Farm in Stevensville, Montana, I heard him mention that I looked like a man with Caprese on his mind.
Since Jamie was so tuned in to the Caprese wavelength, I asked how he serves it at home.
He mixes purple and green basil, along with different-colored tomatoes. It makes a more colorful plate, he noted. He’s also a stickler for balsamic reduction. He likes the syrupy consistency, how it sticks to the cheese and tomatoes and doesn’t run off.
To make your own balsamic reduction, simply heat red or white balsamic in a heavy-bottomed saucepan until it’s reduced by at least half. Some recipes call for sweetener, but I find it sweet enough.
Caprese is usually served as a towering pile, but you can also chop the basil, mozzarella and tomato into utensil-sized bits and sprinkle them with salt, olive oil and some kind of balsamic — red, white or reduced.
Fresh mozzarella is about as cheap as fresh heirloom tomatoes. Unless you have a cow, a cheese shop or a trust fund, your Caprese consumption might be limited by your budget. If you don’t have the funds or just need a new way to express your heirloom addiction, above is a recipe for a salad called heirloom tomato juice. It’s as refreshing as a bowl of gazpacho and requires only a fraction of the prep time.
Heirloom tomato juice
It’s a salad that sips like a soup — and a great way to utilize heirlooms that are too ripe for anything else.
Serves four
Add the cucumbers to a bowl along with 2 teaspoons of salt and the onion, teasing the slices apart into individual crescents. Toss. Add the tomatoes, oil and balsamic and toss again. Taste and add the remainder of the salt if needed.
Wait about 20 minutes for the juices to get flowing. It happens so fast that you can see it with the naked eye. Serve in bowls. When the chunks are done, sip the juice from the bowls.
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