Smoked Tomatoes
Smoked Tomatoes add an unmatched flavor complexity to any tomato meal
Equipment
- 1 Smoker
Ingredients
- 5-10 lb Fresh Tomatoes (as much tomato as you want)
- basil optional
Instructions
- Bring a large pot of water to a boil, and fill another large pot or large mixing bowl with cold water.
- While the water is boiling, wash all of the tomatoes, core them, and slice an X in the bottom of each. The X will make them easier to peel after blanching.
- Once the water is boiling, add about 5-10 tomatoes to the pot. The tomatoes should all be submerged in the boiling water, so the number you can fit in at a time will depend on how large the pot is. Let the tomatoes boil for 1 minute.
- After 1 minute, take 1 tomato out of the boiling pot and check its skin. The skin should be separating from the flesh around the core and around the X at the bottom. If you can’t tell, take a fingernail or the handle of a hard spoon and poke the skin around the X. If it moves easily, transfer all of the tomatoes to the secondary pot of cold water. If the skin is still tight, return it to the pot and boil for 1 more minute. It should not take more than 3 minutes at a boil for the skin to release from the flesh.
- Give the tomatoes a minute or so to cool down in the cold water, then remove them from the water and pull the skin off. The skin will come off easily, but if it is sticking around some parts (especially the core), just take a sharp knife and shave that part off.
- Repeat this process until all of the tomatoes have their skins removed.
- Slice the tomatoes in ¾ - 1 inch slices. For smaller tomatoes, just cut them in half. Place the cut tomatoes in a single layer in a 9x13 foil pan. You can layer the tomatoes tightly and slightly on top of one another to avoid wasting space in the pan.
- Preheat your pellet grill to between 150F - 200F. Fill your smoke tube with pellets and light some of the pellets so that it begins to smoke.
- Once smoking, add your smoke tube to the pellet grill, then add your trays of tomatoes. Every hour, taste a bit of a tomato to gauge how smoky they’ve become. I smoked my tomatoes for 3 hours, but you can smoke for as long (or as short) as you want until you are happy with the flavor.
