Jacques Pépin Makes a Tomato Flower

When you peel an apple, your knife is this way.

You use the thumb.

A potato is the same thing, everything hard.

Now, if I'd go to a tomato, the knife goes here

and now I'm sawing around, different technique.

So, here, I'm sawing around.

I'm working a base, here,

if I decide to peel that tomato

and use that peel to make a flower out of it.

So, notice that I move in a jigsaw fashion,

my hand, here, to do one long peel.

And then, I do a second one

to go into the middle of it.

(jazzy piano music)

Okay, so the first one which had a base, like this,

you will roll this on top of the base,

this way, and then you do tight scroll

with this one to put in the center,

(jazzy piano music)

to do a rose with your tomato.

Now, the tomato is peeled and you can peel it

by putting it in boiling water

or burning it on top of the stove.

You cut it in half, this way,

perpendicular to the stems to expose the seed

and then you press the seed out, when you need tomato flesh.

And then, you saute that tomato flesh one way or the other.

Another thing you can do, too,

you take a piece of that tomato flesh, your towel,

put it into your towel and you do your own cherry tomato,

any size you want,

especially with ripe, very ripe, tomato.

And, you're gonna brush that, you brush that

with a little bit of butter, a dash of salt,

you warm it up and serve it as a garnish on a fish.

The rest of it, you cut it into pieces

to saute just plain tomato flesh.