Preparing Tomatoes

It really is worth the small effort to skin fresh tomatoes for making stews, sauces, soups and coulis.

Choose firm, just ripe fruit. Single tomatoes can be skinned by spearing on a fork and holding over a gas flame until the skin blackens and pops, but for batches of tomatoes a brief dunk in boiling water to loosen the skins is easiest. For cooking, the plum variety, really ripe, are the best tomatoes to use.