You Say Summer, I Say Tomato

The quest for the perfect tomato is one of my passions. I can't think of many greater summer disappointments then buying a bunch of nice-looking and promising tomatoes and then discovering that they don't taste like proper tomatoes at all. Also, one of the happiest feelings is when you stumble upon, most often by chance, a perfectly tasteful and juicy tomato that just explodes in your mouth. But those are rare days and mostly you have to settle for the tomatoes that are just solid. Or raise your own if you’re blessed with a garden or a big balcony.

“Having your own tomato garden is a real fortune.” Image credit: Taste of Croatia 

There are many types that ripen in the summer and the food markets are full of fruits of different sizes and shapes, shades of red, some not even red at all. Visual perfection, meaning picture-book round smooth tomatoes that look like polished, does not mean gustatory perfection – on the contrary. A genuine, natural tomato is an ugly piece of vegetable. It needs to look like it has lead a poor and rough life and nobody pampered it. One of the most popular and authentic seasonal cultivars is what we call volovsko srce – oxheart tomato. This one is not mass farmed and you will never find it in a glass house in the middle of winter. Big, irregular and odd-looking, it’s juicy and tender, and smells fantastic. Šljivar or plum tomato is smaller, firmer, and ideal for being processed into sauces and pastes. Take a walk around the stands at Dolac or Kvatrić market on a busy day, and you’ll surely find many heirloom tomatoes from local farmers. They don’t have a long shelf life, but that’s alright, they usually get devoured quickly.

“Big juicy oxheart tomato is one of my favourite summer things.” Image credit: Zdravo za gotovo 

Tons and tons will be eaten raw, on its own or in salads, but tomato is also the most processed veggie in the summer, the one that gets transformed into something else to last for months more than any other fruit of the land. Diligent hands work hard in these hot days to produce preserved goodies like tomato sauce, puree, paste, homemade ketchup and numerous variations on the theme. Tomato products are also key ingredients in some favourite summer dishes like punjene paprika (stuffed bell peppers), varivo od buče (squash stew) and junetina u paradajz sosu (boiled baby beef in tomato sauce).

A lot of DIY tomato processing goes on in our homes in summer.” Image credit: Taste of Croatia

Of all the seasonal tomato-based lunch dishes typical for Zagreb, my favourite is the latter. Boiled veal or baby beef is both delicious and nutritious, but light enough for hot temperatures. It's served with mashed potatoes, but the crown of this dish is the irresistibly smooth and flavourful tomato sauce. It's made with liquid tomato puree, usually thickened with roux, seasoned with just a little bit of sugar and salt. It's sweet, savoury and creamy at the same time. Thinking outside the box of sauces, soups and stews, you can also stuff tomatoes, grill them, dry them… The saying that tomato is the queen of summer (in Croatian, rajčica is considered female) can be tested and justified in so many ways

Modernized version of the “boiled baby beef in tomato sauce” classic.” Image credit: Vinodol

Header Image Credit: Taste of Croatia