Summer Trio

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A Summer Trio: Tomatoes, Corn and Eggplant.

In late August and September, these three beautiful flavors are at their peak. Here are some helpful tips and hints, along with original recipes, courtesy of Rachel Rappaport of Coconut & Lime.

Click here for her recipes:
Summer Sunshine Salad
Heirloom Tomatoes and Spaghetti Strata
Poblanos stuffed with Chicken and Corn
Eggplant Marinara

Tomatoes:

Off the chart in vitamin C (almost 60% of your daily requirement), rich in A, K, and potassium and most newsworthy, lycopene. It’s a carotenoid with an antioxident function that’s being studied for its cancer-preventing properties and heart disease preventing properties. However some current thinking is that it’s the combination of nutrients in tomatoes that creates this preventive effect. So eat your tomatoes.

The recent tomato scare? In the Chesapeake region, not a problem. More and more supermarkets are also featuring local tomatoes. But for all the delicious, flavorful goodness that a great tomato can offer, we suggest finding farmstand or farmers market tomatoes, if you aren't lucky enough to have a few vines growing in your backyard.

Some handling and usage tips:

— Be careful. Ripe tomatoes bruise super-easily.
— Don’t store in the refrigerator. Tomatoes have a flavor characteristic that starts to drop when refrigerated below 55F. (That’s also the cause of the mealy texture you encounter sometimes.)
— Need to peel a lot of tomatoes? Do the boiling water-ice water thing. Immerse in boiling water for a few seconds, (10) then drop in ice water, or rinse under cold water. The skin slips right off.
— A little sugar or a sweet carrot cooked with tomatoes helps the acidity.
— Yield: 1 medium tomato, seeded, yields approximately 3/4 cup chopped. 1 large tomato, seeded, yields 1 cup chopped. One pound of tomatoes (2 or 3 large to medium) yields approximately 2-1/2 cups of chopped or 2 cups puréed.

Fresh Corn:
High in B1 (25% DV) and folate, dietary fiber and surprisingly, vitamin C (20%).
Sugar in corn, when exposed to heat, turns rapidly to sugar, so use as soon as possible after the corn is picked or refrigerate. Our archive article has more about choosing, types of corn and cooking.

— Buying at a farmstand: make sure that if it has at least been kept out of direct sunlight.
— Don’t strip it! Check the husk. Does it look fresh and not dry? Look for wormholes, don’t buy those that have them.
— Feel the husk. You can tell by feel if the husk is fresh or if the kernels are too grown together.

— Check the tip. You can open up the tip a little bit and look down inside. Look for kernels on the end that are developed; not too small, but not too big, and not dry. Sometimes you’ll find a worm there. Some people care about that, others just snap the end off.
— Cooking: Corn on the cob only takes 4 to 7 minutes, depending on how fresh it is. We recently heard about simply steaming the corn in a shallow pan and tried it. Worked great and took less water, less fuel.
— Corn freezes well. Cook and cool in ice water immediately. Cut off the cob and freeze. Thaw before cooking/using.
— For creamed corn, slice down through the center of a row of kernels, do this around the cob. Using the back of the knife, scrape the milky kernels into a bowl.
Eggplant

Explored eggplant? I’m getting better at it, sometimes the salting and sweating requires more advance planning than I can put into a dish. But eggplant is so delicious; its substantial flesh has an almost meaty, pleasantly tangy/bitter flavor. While eggplants have contain fiber, potassium, manganese, copper, B1 and antioxidants. Interestingly, the eggplant skin has a phytonutrient that seems to protect brain cells. So consider leaving the skin on if you’re cooking a tender-skinned young eggplant.

—   Buy eggplants that are small to medium-sized. Skin should be smooth and shiny, color vivid.
—   To tell if an eggplant is ripe, press your thumb against the skin. It should press in, but spring back. If too firm, it’s unripe.
—   About the salting part: cutting eggplant and salting it lightly releases excess moisture, it takes about 30 minutes. Lightly squeeze out the excess moisture and pat dry. The real benefit of this? Some say this removes bitterness. Others say that sweated eggplant requires much less cooking oil when sautéeing.
—   Roasting and grilling are healthy ways to cook eggplant. Don’t eat it raw.