by Gordon Hamilton

Created on: January 06, 2009   Last Updated: January 18, 2012

The quickest and easiest way to properly skin a tomato is by utilising the concepts of heat expansion and contraction. In order to perform this task - as well as the tomatoes! - we shall require two large bowls or basins, a small sharp knife, boiling water, cold water, ice cubes and a large slotted spoon.

Make a cross in the top of the tomatoes in a "+" shape by making two cuts with the knife, each about half an inch long and deep enough only to fully pierce the skin. Place them in to one of the bowls or basins and pour in enough hot water to cover them. Leave them in the hot water while you half fill the other basin with cold water and add half a dozen or so ice cubes.

After the tomatoes have been in the hot water for about thirty seconds, remove them with the slotted spoon and transfer them straight in to the basin of iced water. Leave them again for about thirty seconds then remove them and sit them somewhere to drain and rest for a couple of minutes.

What we have essentially done here is caused the flesh of the tomatoes to expand in the heat of the boiling water, stretching the skin, then to rapidly contract again in the iced water. As the flesh contracts, the skin cannot "un-stretch" and therefore becomes loose. It should therefore be a simple procedure to of now peel the tomatoes in four strips by gripping them around where we earlier made our cross.

Of course, there are other ways in which to peel tomatoes, many of them depending upon what purpose we have in mind for the peeled tomatoes as to their suitability. One such way is to make similar incisions in the tomatoes as in the expansion and contraction method (to allow steam to escape,) rub them lightly in olive oil and place them on a baking tray in a very low oven for two or three hours. Much of the water in the flesh thus vaporises in the form of steam, causing a very different type of contraction but similarly loosening the flesh.

Finally, there is the essentially simple method of making several incisions through the skin around the entire circumference and investing the patience to slowly peel the skin away in small pieces. This method, however, requires great patience and can lead to a very "patchy" batch of peeled tomatoes.

I am in no doubt that I will continue to use the first method, as I have for many years, other than on those rare occasion when I do prepare slow roasted tomatoes and option two actually forms a part of the whole procedure.

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