Toast is a perfect food. It is infinitely adaptable despite the season, time of day, sweet, savory, snack, meal, ect.
I feel like tomatoes lend themselves particularly well to a toast preparation in contrast to its close cousin, the sandwich, for a few reasons. Firstly, tomatoes are known to be slippery. When sandwiched between 2 slices of bread, the force of a bite chomping down will most likely cause the tomato to yeet itself out of the party and onto your plate. Whereas with a tomato toast, your teeth make direct contact with the tomato which helps keep it in place. Additionally, direct tomato to mouth contact ensures the tomato flavors are not missed.
Tomato season is also “it’s too hot to even think about cooking” season. Coincidentally, tomato toast can easily hit all necessary food groups that make up a balanced meal, no cooking required!!! And no, toasting bread does not count as cooking.
I think raw tomatoes are severely mistreated in the States. Too many people have fallen victim to a soggy tomato slice on a sad deli sandwich and have sworn them off for life. I myself had publicly hated raw tomatoes for this very reason. While I still opt for no tomato on sandwiches and burgers, I ADORE a salted 1/4 inch slice of heirloom tomato. Key word here is salted..
YOU MUST PRE SALT YOUR TOMATOES TO ACHIEVE MAXIMUM TOMATO EUPHORIA. You might be wondering, how does one “pre salt” a tomato? Wellllllllll… First, what you want to do is slice your tomato in nice thick slices (unless you’re going for a thin tomato vibe I.E. tomato carpaccio). Transfer them to a paper towel lined plate or baking sheet and salt both sides. Whenever I preseason something, whether it be vegetables, meat or fish, I use a fine sea salt. It ensures a more even and consistent salt dispersion compared to flaky salt which i love for finishing. THEN, you let the tomato slices chill for like 5-10 minutes to release their extra water content. This will concentrate the flavors and yield a firm tasty slice.
As previously stated, toast is infinitely adaptable. So adapt away! But also, please indulge in one of my tomato toast recipes that I have linked below. I really like them and I think you will too xx.
