Receta Heirloom Tomato Salad with Creamy Corn Dressing
My
friend Edward told me he’d recently had dinner in Manhattan and was served an
unforgettable heirloom tomato salad.
Atop a stack of perfectly ripe tomatoes, a corn and cream dressing made
the tomatoes even more irresistible.
Since both corn and tomatoes are still flooding farm stands and farmer’s
markets, I wanted to share my version of this terrific salad. But hurry. In no time, the tomatoes will
disappear and with them, the sweet corn of summer. So make this this weekend and I can almost
guarantee, you’ll dream about it this winter.
The
heirloom tomato has become one of the joys of summer. Called “heritage”
tomatoes in Britain, the heirloom is what is called an ‘open-pollinated’ heirloom
cultivar of the tomato. They come in a rainbow of colors—from yellow to orange
to crimson and purple. Heirlooms fall
into four categories—family heirlooms, commercial Heirlooms, mystery heirlooms
and created heirlooms. They’re grown
certainly for their historical interest, but also because of their taste. If
you haven’t ever eaten an heirloom, be prepared for something that would make a
supermarket tomato blush from embarrassment.
They really are the ultimate tomato.
But they do have their drawbacks.
Their shelf life is shorter and they are less disease resistant. And they’re not necessarily the prettiest of
tomatoes. In fact, if they were standard
red tomatoes, you’d likely pass them by.
They’re cracked a bit around the stem. Their color isn’t uniform and
you’ve got to eat them within a day or two of their arrival or you’ll be
disappointed.
We
can find heirloom tomatoes in our fancier food stores but there’s nothing to
compare with those grown on our local farms.
My personal favorite is Fairview Farm, which is a fourth generation
family farm on Horsemill Lane off Mecox Road in Bridgehampton, so close to the ocean you can
smell the salt air. As recently as 2000,
the farm grew the potatoes Long Island is famous for. Then, the Ludlow brothers, Art and Harry,
decided to pursue their own agricultural interests. Art gradually turned over his fields to
pasture land, which now support The Mecox Bay Dairy, the cheese-making
operation that turned out its first cheese in 2002. His brother Harry’s love
remained growing things and maintaining the family farm stand where you can
find both Art’s cheeses and Harry’s range of vegetables, fruits and any number
of homemade items his wife makes up in the house his great grandfather built in
the 1870s. But what draws me to Fairview
are Harry’s extraordinarily flavorful heirloom tomatoes. They come in all colors—from yellow
to orange to crimson and purple.
Heirlooms fall into four categories—family heirlooms, commercial
Heirlooms, mystery heirlooms and created heirlooms. People like Harry Ludlow grow them,
certainly for their historical interest, but also because they truly are one of
the great joys of summer.
The
other great summer joy is, of course, sweet corn. I’ve waxed poetic about the corn we get at
Country Gardens, the closest farm stand to us on Millstone Road. The Falkowski Family farm stand stocks only
corn that’s picked in the morning, sold all-day and retired to the feedlot
every evening. At one point, I panicked
because Tom Falkowski is the father of four daughters and no sons. You’d think someone whose sympathies are
decidedly feminist would have been more hopeful for the future. Sure enough, one of Tom’s daughters has stepped
up and joined her father farming their 176 acres. Now the future seems assured and we can all
go back to enjoying their corn.
The
recipe for the salad is simple to make.
- Roasting the corn in the oven leads to the cleanest of silk free
- corn. If you’re pressed for time, you
- can microwave the corn for just minutes but I think the oven-roasted version
- has more flavor. The dressing is a
- pickup from the one I used earlier this month for our Lobster Cobb Salad. I liked it so much, it’s amazing I had any
- leftover. Here, make about a cup and you
- can feed a crowd. Strip the warm corn
- from the cobs, toss it in the buttermilk
basil dressing and slice the tomatoes.
Drizzle the corn dressing over the sliced heirlooms and stand back. You’ve just presented two of summer’s
greatest treats.
Recipe for Heirloom Tomatoes with Creamy Corn Buttermilk Basil
Dressing: Serves 4. 10 Minutes Active Time. Takes 30 minutes in
total to make.
For the Salad:
2 lbs. Heirloom Tomatoes
4 ears of Sweet Corn
For the Buttermilk Basil Dressing:
1/2 cup
Olive Oil Mayonnaise
2 tbsp.
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
A few
drops on Fresh Lemon juice
Preheat
oven to 350 degrees.
Put the
corn on a sheet pan in the oven. In 30 minutes, remove corn and,
once it is cool enough to touch, shuck it. Then strip the corn from
the cob and put it into a medium bowl. Set aside.
Cutting corn into a Bundt pan keeps corn off the counter.
Make the
Buttermilk Basil Dressing:
Combine
all ingredients in a blender or food processor with the metal blade attached.
Puree on high speed until smooth. Salt to your taste.
Add the
dressing to the corn in the bowl and mix.
Slice
the tomatoes and put them on individual salad plates. Spoon the creamy corn
dressing over the tomatoes. Serve at
once.