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Chinese Purple Tomato Fried Rice

DoT’s Thot:  Reminder: Chinese Purple Tomato Homage to Fried Rice

I had some of these beautiful tomatoes on hand a few days ago, when I had the urge to eat fried rice.  I selected my largest slicer and decided to enhance my regular fried rice with this special tomato.  That turned out to be a fantastic idea.  It worked so well and we ate the rice down to every grain that I decided to share this in the review as an idea you might want to try with your special homegrown tomatoes and leftover rice.  Having written about the tomato characteristics on a previous post, I have now written the recipe down for you.

Chinese Purple Tomato Fried Rice Ingredients

Chinese Purple Tomato in Fried Rice Cooking in the Wok

Recipe for Leftover Rice Elevated to a Fine Dish with the Addition of Chinese Purple Tomato

I use my leftover rice, but you can make fresh  rice and then make the fried rice using that.  You can use other varieties of rice, but I happened to have medium grain brown rice leftover from two meals:  about 1.5 cups of steamed brown rice and about the same amount of  saffron buttered steamed brown rice.

• Ingredients Chinese Purple Tomato Fried Rice
  • 3 cups of leftover steamed ice
  • 1 garlic clove sliced
  • 1 -2 tablespoons of olive oil (use lesser amount if your leftover rice has any oil in it, like ny saffron buttered rice)
  • 1/2 cup chopped round onion (I used red, but any will do)
  • 1 cup chopped celery
  • 1/2 cup frozen peas
  • 1 Chinese Purple Tomato (about 8 oz.) washed, cored, cut into wedges and cut wedges in half for nice big chunks
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • a small cup of water (keep it handy to keep rice from burning or getting too dry) Read the rest of this entry »

Day's Harvest of Chinese Purple Tomato 9 July 2009

DoT’s Thot:  Don’t confuse these beautiful red yummy Chinese Purple tomatoes with the genetically modified purple tomato — I was shocked at the eggplant purple color when I found it in a picture on the site cited below.

I tried to find more intormation about the tomato seedling that I bought this year and found very little on it, so decided to make my own notes and go from there.  So here is what I have figured out so far.

Chinese Purple Tomato with Flowers July 9, 2009

Chinese Purple Tomato with Green Tomatoes on the Vine 9 July 2009

Chinese Purple Tomatoes Ripening on the Vine

Chinese Purple Tomato Plant and Tomato Characteristics

The plant is an indeterminate (I) plant and is relatively rare.  This is the first time I had seen it for sale anywhere and was intrigued, since “Chinese” was not too common (lots of other countries I see more often) and “purple” is not a color used very often either.  The tag related that this tomato would have outstanding and sweet flavor, yield 8 to 16 oz. fruits, and was listed as a slicer tomato.

I found the plant to be reasonably vigorous and reasonably productive.  The fruits have a nice shape and develop into a beautiful deep red.  I can see why “purple” in the deepening hues, although I keep thinking that it is more accurately a deep red with some blue undertones.  I did not get super large fruits, but 8 ounce fruits were forthcoming.

Chinese Purple Tomato Homage to Fried Rice

I had some of these beautiful tomatoes on hand yesterday, when I had the urge to eat fried rice.  I selected my largest slicer and decided to enhance my regular fried rice with this special tomato.  Read the rest of this entry »

Tomato "Huh?"

DoT’s Thot: “As we know, there are known knowns. There are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns. That is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns, the ones we don’t know we don’t know.” – Donald Rumsfeld

I came across this celebrity tomato-related recipe (looked interesting) and felt kind of curious.  I have been trying to imagine what this dish should look like and smell like coming out of the oven.  If someone has a picture or has made it, I would consider it a kindness to find out vicariously what this tomato recipe yields.  I do suspect that it is more than my quota of indulgence for the day.  My guess is that it’s a brown, fruity, but not creamy, version of bread pudding.  I can’t afford the calories (this is the known known).  I don’t know what this looks like nor tastes like (these are known unknowns).  I wonder what my unknown unknowns might be.

Mamie Eisenhower’s Tomato Pudding

1 (24 or 29 ounce) can tomato puree
1 1/2 cups firmly packed light brown sugar
Pinch of salt
1/3 cup boiling water
8 slices bread
1/2 pound butter

In buttered casserole cube the 8 slices of bread. Slice the butter over the bread. Add the tomato puree, brown sugar, salt and boiling water that have been mixed together. Bake at 350 degrees F, uncovered, for 1 hour.

Nevertheless, thanks to two Washington, D.C., celebrities, this tomato recipe was fun to think about.  I put this recipe in the — “maybe I’ll try it some time” pile.

Aloha, DoT

Cultivate and Fertilize the Heirloom Tomatoes

Related Articles or References

• Recipe Goldmine: Mamie Eisenhower’s Tomato Pudding
  

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• Tip:  Stake Up and Tie Those Stray Tomato Branches with Velcro
• Grow Tomatoes Journal News:  2009 Late Blight hits East Coast
• Grow Tomatoes Journal:  Review of Ingredients for 20 Cups of Salsa
• Grow Tomatoes Review:  18 Oz. Omar’s Lebanese Beefsteak Tomato
• Grow Tomatoes Review: Sugar Lump Cherry Heirloom
• Tomato Gardening Journal — Review of May 2009
• Grow Tomatoes Review:  Orange Santa Grape
• First Tomato of 2009 — Pink Thai Egg

DoT’s Thot: I generally like my guacamole very simple — only avocado, lemon juice, salt, and cilantro.  However, when tomato season is on, I cannot help but throw some delightful tomato chunks in the mix.

Golden Pineapple Beefsteak Tomato with Other Ingredients

Journal Entry:  4 July 2009, Independence Day Golden Pineapple Beefsteak Tomato “Guacamole Salsa”

The Golden Pineapple Beefsteak tomato is a lovely golden yellow tomato with red striping on the skin and beautiful pink streaks in the flesh.  Firm, meaty, and mild with the firm, smooth texture that is so complementary to avocado, I keep planting this tomato despite its tendency to crack a little more than some of the other heirloom tomatoes I plant.  That says a lot for the tomato.  One of the reasons I do not mind the cracking is because of dishes like the one I am going to describe where I can lop off all the cracked parts and take the good parts and eat them in the yummy dish.

For a great side dish, these ingredients are few and simple, relying more on the freshness and innate goodness of the ingredients themselves.  First, use really good chunks of tomato. Often, with homegrowers, we will have some not so pretty results, where there are some cracks or some not so well shaped tomatoes or (as I am gradually learning about pruning, etc.) tomatoes of various sizes from the same tomato plant.  These still have lots of good tomato flesh and the same great flavor. Don’t waste those — besides cooking and canning, fresh dishes where you chop the tomato chunks, like this one, are great.

Golden Pineapple Beefsteak Tomato Characteristics

The Golden Pineapple beefsteak tomato pieces in my picture resulted from my cutting up a large beefsteak tomato that had a large blossom end and a few deep cracks.  This has been a very nice continuing member of  the garden this year.  As mentioned above, Golden Pineapple Beefsteak  produces meaty tomatoes which are a nice yellow with red streaks.  It is very pretty in a dish like this and it’s mild, sweet taste melds so well with avocado and lime.  The flesh is firm, but has a creamy, not mushy texture.  There are few seeds and you can see how visually appealing the tomato slices and chunks are, especially so in this dish.

Tomatoes and Avocado Chopped and Lime Juice Applied

Other Ingredients

You will need a ripe, creamy textured, but firm avocado.  The cilantro should be fresh and bright green.  Use either lime juice or lemon juice, but always fresh-squeezed.  Sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper finish the dish.  Seasoned salt is always an option, if you prefer.  If doing that, I like the variety with cracked black pepper in it.

The Process of Making the Golden Pineapple Beefsteak Tomato “Guacamole Salsa”

Clean all the ingredients.  Remove the skin and seed from the avocado.  Chop the avocado into nice half inch chunks.  Remove any bad parts of the tomatoes (see above).  Remove the stem and blossom ends.  Chop the tomato, again into chunks about a half inch or less, if you like.

Place the avocado and tomato into a bowl.  Squeeze the juice of the lime or lemon (about 1 to 2 tablespoons) over all and gently mix together.

Golden Pineapple Beefsteak Tomato "Guacamole Salsa" Served in Pretty Bowls

Sprinkle salt and pepper to taste and mix gently again.  Put the mixture into pretty bowls.  Chop the cilantro (again, use what you feel like eating — some people (like me) like a lot, some people like less and mix it in )– reserve a tablespoon of cilantro for each bowl as a topping. Finally put the results in pretty bowls, top with the reserved cilantro and serve it.

Suggested Uses for this Golden Pineapple Beefsteak Tomato Dish

If you like, use this as a side dish or pile it on chopped lettuce instead of dressing.  You will find it goes well on top of short chunks of celery or flat ovoids of carrots or cucumber or with your favorite tortilla chips or whole grain crackers.  Then again,sometimes, I just take the bowl and get a spoon.

Enjoy and Aloha, DoT

Related Articles or References

• What is a Roma tomato?
• Heirlooms versus Hyrids: A Common-sense Approach

Related Posts

• Grow Tomatoes Review:  Journal Entry – Early Tomatoes Were Hybrids in Pots
• Care Package of Tomatoes Packed to Go to Berkeley
• Tip:  Stake Up and Tie Those Stray Tomato Branches with Velcro
• Grow Tomatoes Journal News:  2009 Late Blight hits East Coast
• Grow Tomatoes Journal:  Review of Ingredients for 20 Cups of Salsa
• Grow Tomatoes Review:  18 Oz. Omar’s Lebanese Beefsteak Tomato
• Grow Tomatoes Review: Sugar Lump Cherry Heirloom
• Tomato Gardening Journal — Review of May 2009
• Grow Tomatoes Review:  Orange Santa Grape
• First Tomato of 2009 — Pink Thai Egg

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Cultivate and Fertilize the Heirloom Tomatoes

DoT’s Thot: I love heirloom tomatoes and the vast majority of the crop planted in 2009 are heirloom plants with the fruit anxiously awaited, since we know that to eat the best tasting tomatoes, we have to grow our own.  However, the plants that show up early in the home improvement and garden shops are often the hybrid tomatoes, rather than the heirlooms.

Early Tomatoes, 23 June 2009, Celebrity and Roma

Roma and Celebrity Tomatoes Sliced

This year, I also had the misfortune of being out of town during one of the best tomato plant sales at one of the colleges.  I have not gotten the hang of growing tomatoes from seeds — so, currently I rely on the good gardeners who apply their talents to keeping the heirlooms viable.  Fortunately, there are enough tomato nuts  to support the efforts of several horticultural departments and we all benefit.  Hence, being a tomato lover I planted some fair size hybrids in pots some time in late February.

June 23, 2009 — Two Early Hybrid Tomatoes:  Celebrity and Roma — Hardy and Firm

Two early tomatoes that came ripe in the third week of June were Celebrity and La Roma.  Both tomatoes are hybrids, showed a great deal of hardiness with smooth skins, unblemished, and very firm.  Both are a sprightly red color.

While our favorite eating tomatoes are the heirlooms, these are not as easily found in the local garden shops early in the year.  These two plants were bought in February and potted in those mega-pots sitting on our patio.  Conical tomato cages and bamboo stakes prop up the branches. The hardiness of the plants is noticeable and appreciated.

We frequent the horticulture department sales at local colleges for the heirloom tomato seedlings and have to wait for the sales in March each year.  Our main garden tomato seedling purchases are set in the ground en masse in March.

Picked ripe from the large patio pots, these were sweeter than the store-bought tomatoes and since these were the only two ripe tomatoes available on that day, they were simply cut into rounds and wedges and then made into a simple side salad.

Side Salad of Tomatoes and Onions

Tomato and Sweet Red Onion Salad

To serve with chilled slices of sweet red onion. cut little half moon slices of onion and soak for 10 to 15 minutes in some water and ice cubes. Serve the onions along side the tomatoes.

A little squeeze of lemon over the onions and salt and pepper sprinkled over all completed the simple salad side dish.

Better Than Sore-Bought, But Not As Interesting as Heirloom Tomatoes

Decidedly an improvement from store-bought, these tomatoes only whetted my appetite for the heirloom tomatoes to come.

Reading about heirlooom and hybrid plants, it may be a good idea to  support the effort to protect the horticultural diversity of this planet.  In addition, I find I love the taste of heirloom tomatoes best.  I will, for the time-being, do so by buying the plants and seeds of heirlooms that others passionately preserve.

The shapes, colors, and characteristics of heirloom varieties are appealing in their range of differences.  In fact, I kept thinking that the Old German heirloom tomato plan somehow reminded me of pumpking and squash vines.  Just looking at those twiesting tomato branches made me think of Germany, the Black Forest, and fairy tales.  I have to get some pictures and post those.  Aloha, DoT

Related Articles or References

• What is a Roma tomato?
• Heirlooms versus Hyrids: A Common-sense Approach
• Care Package of Tomatoes Packed to Go to Berkeley

Related Posts

• Tip:  Stake Up and Tie Those Stray Tomato Branches with Velcro
• Grow Tomatoes Journal News:  2009 Late Blight hits East Coast
• Grow Tomatoes Journal:  Review of Ingredients for 20 Cups of Salsa
• Grow Tomatoes Review:  18 Oz. Omar’s Lebanese Beefsteak Tomato
• Grow Tomatoes Review: Sugar Lump Cherry Heirloom
• Tomato Gardening Journal — Review of May 2009
• Grow Tomatoes Review:  Orange Santa Grape
• First Tomato of 2009 — Pink Thai Egg

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