As we near August, you and I will be tempted and tempted by the wrong tomato season. Although I’ve never had a really fantastic tomato in my life before the eighth month of the year, I refuse to learn and will always be betrayed by at least one good looking but disappointing tasting tomato.
Good, fresh tomatoes cannot be forced. Sure, cherry tomatoes are pretty decent any time of the year, but they don’t compare to a ripe summer tomato. Fortunately, humans learned how to use heat (and salt) to improve our food a long time ago, and the air fryer is the next step in this evolutionary journey. It’s a fairly new device, but an efficient one, and I’m happy to announce that it does a tough job turning watery, bland tomatoes into an umami-rich, jammy mass.
Unlike most of my favorite air fryer uses, this one isn’t a damn thing. Instead, the whipping winds of the tiny hot air oven inflate the tomato’s skin and tear it into its flesh. Juices will leak, then evaporate almost completely, condensing into something that, while not being a syrup in its consistency, is certainly sweet enough to be one.
These extinguished tomatoes are wildly aromatic. They have a deep, caramelized sweetness – almost like tomato paste – with the intense, slightly rosy notes of a sun-dried tomato minus the overwhelming tartness. They spread like a hearty jam and are great as a sandwich filling, especially if you’re craving something warmer, sweeter, and rib-like Tomato toast.
Cook time is pretty long for an air fryer recipe, but it’s still pretty short considering another of my favorite roasted tomato recipes calls for it one night in the oven.
G / O Media can receive a commission
All you need to do is add a dry pint of cherry tomatoes (or about 10 ounce larger, halved, or quartered tomatoes) to your air fryer basket along with 2 tablespoons of olive oil and a few large pinches of salt. If your air fryer has a “crispier platter” or similar hardware that is used to keep the food above the bottom of the air fryer, remove it. You want the tomatoes to sit in the oil. (If you have a toaster-style air fryer, place the tomatoes and oil in an ovenproof bowl.)
Once the tomatoes are in a small pool of salted olive oil, close the basket and set the temperature to 300 ° C. Let the tomatoes cook and reduce for a full hour, stirring about every 15 minutes, until they collapse into a shapeless mass of browned, soft tomato pulp. Spread the must on the bread, slide it into a sandwich or mix it with a cereal. You can also put it on ricotta and scoop it into your mouth with potato chips. In fact, I think I’ll do that now.
