Peeling Tomatoes

Fresh Roma Tomatoes!

Many recipes will call for tomatoes to be peeled. To someone who's never encountered the technique before, it probably sounds strange; I've watched first-semester culinary students try to take a vegetable peeler to a tomato with comedic results. (The tomato, sadly, was rendered mostly useless and became part of our beef stock...)

Edit: I'm shocked at how popular this particular little post is—if you're interested in more techniques like this one, I can certainly make an effort to post more like it.

The process is actually very simple and painless, and takes almost no time at all. As a reference point for future recipes, the process is below:

To peel roma tomatoes, bring a pot of water to a boil, and prepare an ice bath. Slice a shallow cross into the blossom end (without the stem scar) of the tomatoes. Once the water boils, place the tomatoes in the water—do not crowd them—and boil until the skin begins to split and peel away at the cuts. Remove them from the pan and place in the ice bath. The skin will peel off easily.

Tomatoes being removed from the water.

Peeling the tomatoes.

Removing the seeds and center flesh.