What to use instead of ripe tomatoes
It depends entirely on what it's doing in the dish. Here's the job, what else does it, and what to skip.
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Raw juicy sweet-acid flesh in a salad or salsa
The whole effect is the balance of sugar, acid and a set of volatile aroma compounds that only develop in a tomato that ripened on the vine and never went cold.
Cherry or grape tomatoes, halvedRan out
1 lb cherry per 1 lb large tomatoes
Reliably sweeter out of season because they are bred for sugar, but there is more skin and less juice, so a panzanella has less to soak into the bread.
Drained canned San Marzano, torn by handRan out
one 14 oz can, drained, per 1 lb fresh
Soft rather than crisp, so it holds up on bruschetta and falls apart in a horiatiki. The cooked flavour is obvious next to raw.
Roasted red peppers, torn, plus vinegarRan out
1 cup peppers + 1 tsp red wine vinegar per 2 medium tomatoes
Sweet and smoky with no acid at all until you add it. A different salad, and a good one.
Watermelon in a gazpachoRan out
replace up to half the tomato by weight, plus 1 tbsp sherry vinegar per 2 cups
Much sweeter and thinner. The soup needs noticeably more salt and acid to stay on the savoury side.
What doesn't work: Tomatoes that have been in the fridge. Below about 12 C the aroma compounds break down and the flesh goes mealy, and neither damage reverses when you bring them back to room temperature; a cold-stored tomato tastes of nothing no matter how ripe it looked in the shop.
Grated pulp as the base of a raw sauce (pan con tomate, salmorejo)
Grating on a box grater separates the pulp and seeds from the skin, giving you tomato water plus flesh, which is acting as the liquid and the seasoning at once.
Canned whole peeled, blitzed briefly and drained through a sieveRan out
one 14 oz can per 1 lb fresh
Redder and more acidic with no fresh perfume. Salmorejo made this way wants more olive oil and a pinch of sugar.
PassataRan out
3/4 cup per 1 lb fresh
Already smooth, so bread absorbs it immediately; pan con tomate goes soggy in a minute rather than five.
Sun-dried tomatoes soaked and blended with their soaking waterRan out
1/3 cup dry + 3/4 cup warm water per 1 lb fresh
Concentrated, darker and almost jammy. Spread half as much on the bread or it swamps everything else.
What doesn't work: Tomato paste thinned with water spread on toast. Paste has been cooked for hours, so what you get tastes of long-cooked tomato and tin; the dish is built entirely on raw tomato juice and its absence is the first thing you notice.