Smoking and Searing Tomatoes

At a dinner party recently, I tried for the first time the smoked tomato cream sauce from Dave's Fresh Pasta in Davis Square (Somerville, MA). It's incredible and would pair well with several of their handmade ravioli and pastas. (I had it with black pepper fettuccine.) Smoked tomatoes were a revelation to me, with their earthy, campfire fragrance, and since trying that sauce I've been eager to smoke my own tomatoes. For years, I've been roasting or drying them in a variety of ways, but now that the tomatoes in my fire-escape garden are getting plumper by the day I'm ready for something new.



Emeril offers a recipe for a smoked tomato cream sauce that requires a smoker, which can be found in many shapes and sizes. Of course, the type of wood (e.g., hickory, mesquite, apple, cherry) you use for the wood chips to smoke the tomatoes will impart different flavors. I recommend trying olive wood chips. A grill could be substituted with some success but you'll need one that can easily grill indirectly and has vents and a tight lid to trap and hold the smoke from the wood chips. Once the tomatoes are smoked, the sauce is finished off with sautéed onions and garlic and a creamy stock. If grilling or smoking are not feasible methods, I recommend a great pasta sauce from Mark Bittman of pan-seared Roma tomatoes balanced with ricotta cheese and fresh basil. Whichever sauce you choose, you'll start to see tomatoes in a new (and smoky) light.