The DU Lounge
Related: Culture Forums, Support ForumsSummertime is the time for tomato sandwiches
Share your favorite tomato sandwich recipes
Here's mine,
1. Pick a tomato from your garden. If you don't have a garden, find a local farm stand.
Do NOT, I repeat, Do NOT buy some rubbery, red tomato from your grocery store.
Find a real freaking tomato, otherwise do not bother.
2. Toast your favorite bread.
3. Slice your juicy, delicious tomato as thin or thick as you like.
4. When your toast pops up, slather it with mayonnaise. Hellman's is my preference.
5. Salt and pepper that toast, generously.
6. Place slices of your yummy, ripe, juicey tomato on the toast.
7. Cut your sandwich diagonally, or vertically, it doesn't really matter.
8. Eat it! It's yummy.
kcdoug1
(222 posts)MFM008
(19,803 posts)Tomatos.
Warpy
(111,235 posts)and it will be the time for fresh tomato salsa, the hotter the better. I made some up with "vine ripened" supermarket tomatoes last week. It's OK, better than cooked, canned salsa, but not by much. I'm enjoying it in large quantities in sliced chicken tacos.
sounds yummy!
I should probably go to the international grocery to see if they've got mangoes. Mango salsa will help me last until the decent tomatoes show up.
madaboutharry
(40,203 posts)Honeycombe8
(37,648 posts)Never heard of it.
But...there's nothing in it but a tomato! Which is a sandwich topping?
NYResister
(164 posts)But I know some people who would agree with you that it's a topping and not a sandwich.
You should try it. It's delicious.
Sabrinao
(23 posts)The toasting part! 😝
I usually slap some mayonnaise on a nice, soft piece of untoasted potato bread or regular white bread for that melt in your mouth goodness. Everything else you said is spot on!
mnhtnbb
(31,381 posts)There may not be Duke's mayonnaise for sale where you live. That's a shame, and you should really try to get some, because it's markedly less sugary than other commercial mayonnaise brands and allows the tomato slices to sing their luscious, sweet and tangy tune.
How to win over a mayo-hater
Hellmann's will also get the job done, but if anyone begins to bring up the possibility of making the mayonnaise for this sandwich at home ("It's sooooo eeeeaaasssyyy. Just use your bllleeeenderrrr..." , banish them to the porch until they have contemplated the error of their ways. Yes, even if it is raining. Simplicity is serious business here.
Same goes for the white bread. You must not make this bread, nor should the word "artisanal" be uttered within 100 paces of it. You must purchase this bread and the word "crappy" must be at least somewhat applicable to it. Chef Bill Smith of Crook's Corner restaurant in Chapel Hill, North Carolina makes his with store-bought bread (a move New Orleans chef Adolfo Garcia reportedly referred to as "ballsy" and the man's won or been nominated for every big cooking award under the sun. Trust him, for he is a professional maker of tomato mayo sandwiches.
Upon this soft, crappy bread, slather the mayonnaise. How thickly and on one or both slices - that's your business. On top of one slice, layer tomatoes.
The tomatoes should come from a farm, a farmstand, a neighbor or if you're extremely lucky, your own garden. If the angels are smiling upon you from the heavens and you saved a basket of kittens from certain death on a railroad track in a past life, these tomato will be of an heirloom variety. They should be red (yes the yellows, oranges and purples are stunning to behold, but we're on a particular mission here) and taste of blue skies and blazing sun. At the very least, they should have been grown in soil rather than a hydroponic compound, but sometimes, we must make do. If they have seen the inside of a fridge, though, skip them. These are not the tomatoes you're looking for.
Cut the slices to whatever depth brings you the greatest pleasure. For some, this will be akin to the thickness of a thumb. Others may wish to skim this month's copy of Nightshade Enthusiast through theirs. Either way, you're in it for the juice - or rather the locular jelly, which is that luscious goop in the center that holds all the acid. There should be enough of that to stain the mayonnaise a light pink and make your knees buckle just a little bit.
When you're finished layering the slices. Stack on the top slice and...wait. It'll taste good right now, but it'll be even better in ten or fifteen minutes when the juice has had a chance to seep in and meld with the mayonnaise and juuuuust begin to sog up that first millimeter or two of bread. You've held out all year for tomatoes to be in season - what's a few minutes more?
http://www.cnn.com/2014/07/28/living/tomato-mayo-sandwich-eatocracy/
unc70
(6,110 posts)I have known the aforementioned chef, Bill Smith, for nearly fifty years and we grew up a few miles apart. I agree completely with those instructions. Had my first sandwiches of the season on Saturday with a Carrboro farmers market tomato.
And it really needs to be Dukes mayo.
mnhtnbb
(31,381 posts)unc70
(6,110 posts)jpak
(41,757 posts)gonna have to get me some today.
NYResister
(164 posts)I've never heard of Duke's. I wonder if I can order it online?
mnhtnbb
(31,381 posts)NYResister
(164 posts)Raster
(20,998 posts)Soybean oil, eggs, water, distilled and cider vinegar, salt, oleoresin paprika, natural flavors, calcium disodium EDTA added to protect flavor. Contains: Eggs
It must be a southern thing.
yallerdawg
(16,104 posts)Accept no substitute for slathering onto both slices of your RAW toast (it ain't a BLT!):
femmocrat
(28,394 posts)The tomato must be still warm from the sun. Perfection!
NYResister
(164 posts)Warm the sun. It just doesn't get any better than that.
jpak
(41,757 posts)B from the local farmer's market
L&T from the garden
Organic Maine-grown sourdough bread and mayo from the local supermarket
Yum!
rurallib
(62,406 posts)Peanut butter! Yes indeed!
Been eating them that way since I was a wee one.
NYResister
(164 posts)I'm curious to try it.
rurallib
(62,406 posts)seriously I have been eating them since I was @ 10
Just don't like mayo
smirkymonkey
(63,221 posts)Has to be a garden tomato or an heirloom or organic tomato. It just doesn't work with ordinary commercially grown tomatoes. They have no flavor at all.
Brother Buzz
(36,410 posts)Hellman's? I heard it's nothing but Best Foods mayonnaise with an east coast accent.
wryter2000
(46,032 posts)Same mayo. Hellman's in the east. Best Foods west of the Rockies. In Oaktown's cool climate, the only tomato that will ripen property is Early Girl. Small but great flavor. The bread must be soft and white.
Brother Buzz
(36,410 posts)NRaleighLiberal gave me some pruning/thinning ideas, and now I have a boomer vine that is producing four times as many tomatoes as before. Hell, I'm having to work at keeping the vine under seven feet tall; like Kudzu, it's going places.
I haven't the heart to tell him my Cherokee Purple is a total dude again
Oh, try potato bread for a pleasant experience; it fits your criteria, and the flavor helps bring it all together.
wryter2000
(46,032 posts)Where do you live in CA? In Oakland our nights are too cool to ripen a beefsteak. I've tried. They don't taste much better than store bought tomatoes. I finally settled on Early Girls, which are delicious. But even the first few of them don't taste too great. They're just now getting delicious.
Brother Buzz
(36,410 posts)But I grew up in the fog belt of Marin County, and we grew bumper crops of Beefsteak tomatoes back in the day. Our soil was shell mound which was augmented with a ton of of home grown compost.
NYResister
(164 posts)I LOVE avocado.
Staph
(6,251 posts)It must be store-bought white bread.
And thinly slivered onion is a wonderful addition.
Response to NYResister (Original post)
Mosby This message was self-deleted by its author.
NYResister
(164 posts)I love stewed tomatoes as well.
riverbendviewgal
(4,252 posts)Must be very fresh bread.
Another favorite is grilled cheese with tomato between the cheese. Yummy.