Sautéed Cherry Tomatoes

I remember as a child loving to look at cook books, then, I started to buy them. Now, we store the excess in our tiny garage. I love getting packages in the mail, after all who doesn’t? It’s like a birthday present coming from a relative far away. I had joined one of those clubs where each month they send you the book of the month and other catalogues. Mine was a cook book club. I kind of became a shopaholic with them! And, I still have most of them. I finally cancelled some years back. This isn’t one of my “go to” recipes (it should be), but I found it again flipping through George & Piret Munger’s book Pirets’s: Recipes from America’s Foremost Culinary Emporium. I was living a very decadent, secular lifestyle back then & I loved throwing dinner parties, after all, this was 1986, Studio ’54 and NYC restaurants back in the day. “Those Tomatoes” as they are called in the book, were just the perfect bistro accompaniment to lush, marbled meats and pommes frites. The recipe is my take on theirs. Enjoy with the ripe cherry, grape or teardrop tomatoes that are hanging on your vines. The beautiful cherry tomatoes from our gardens here are so sweet. I’ll definitely put these on the menu for our guests at lunch (sans the vermouth). So, go ahead and cancel the cook book club, I’ll share my recipes with you.

Author: Chef Alison Costello of the Meldrum Soup Kitchen

Sautéed Cherry Tomatoes

• Cherry or grape tomatoes
• Dry vermouth
• Salt
• Pepper
• Fresh garlic (crushed)

Using a basket, immerse the tomatoes in boiling water for 3-4 seconds and drain. Peel them by removing the stem, making a small “x” at the stem end. The peels should slip off. (You may skip this step and keep skins on, but the extra effort is well worth it.)

Oven method: preheat to 350F
Place toms in a baking dish, sprinkle w/vermouth, s, p, and garlic (all to your own taste). Bake uncovered for 10 minutes or so-should be cooked through, but still hold their taste.

Sauté method: get a pan good and hot, add a few drops of olive oil, roll that around in the pan. Add the toms and seasonings. Sauté only for a few minutes. Pour in a bit of vermouth, cook a few moments more.

These are really good with grilled chicken and fish.