The idea of taking a dull knife (read: most of the cutlery in my kitchen) to an heirloom tomato makes me shudder. Think about it—the skin of an expensive delicate tomato being poked, prodded, and disrespected by anything other than a sharp blade? I’m SCREAMING.
I've waited all year for (and spent lots of money on) the Brandywines and Cherokee Purples that are now at the farmers market in abundance. That’s why when it comes time for slicing, nothing but the best tomato knife will do—and for me that's a Victorinox paring knife with a serrated edge . A serrated blade might seem counterintuitive, but unless your chef's knife is so razor-sharp that it falls through a potato (mine is certainly not), the serrations on the Victorinox's cutting edge are the better choice for juicy, slippery fruit. Because the cutting motion is across rather than down, you'll end up with thin, even tomato slices without tearing the skin or pressing out any of the seeds. If you’ve ever attempted to halve a cherry tomato with a dull knife and watched it go SPLAT!, you’ll understand.
Victorinox 4-Inch Paring Knife with Serrated Edge
There are occasions when the best knife for cutting tomatoes is actually a high-quality bread knife, like the 10-inch Mercer Culinary Millennia . For example, if you've brought home a beefy heirloom the size of a softball, a 4-inch serrated tomato knife might not be the proper tool for that job. Or say you need to halve a pint of cherry tomatoes for ratatouille pasta or a summery salad that is both fancy and beautiful . In that case, gently sandwich your lil guys between the lids of two quart containers, position a bread knife parallel to the cutting surface and in between the two lids, and saw them all in half in one fell swoop.
Mercer Culinary Millennia 10" Bread Knife
But in all other cases, you're going to want to reach for that Victorinox tomato knife, which is easier to maneuver and features an ergonomic handle and a Swiss-crafted, stainless steel blade. I bought it for a very specific purpose when I was a lowly pastry cook, assigned to slice poached pears into improbably thin slices (24 per pear!). But I ended up using the shortie for all sorts of things: cutting citrus into wheels for a cocktail or a tart , slicing ripe plums and peaches for fruit salad or clafoutis , extracting a clean wedge of pie or upside-down cake , sawing through a sticky log of cinnamon bun dough or the diamond-hard chocolate chips in a chilled cylinder of cookie dough .
If you’re like, “clafoutis who? I’m never going to do those things,” that’s fine. You should still give this serrated slicer a home in your kitchen, if only for precious, perfect, peak-season tomatoes and all of the flatbreads and salads and toasts and HAVE YOU SEEN THIS GALETTE they grace. My tomatoes deserve the best tomato knife out there. Don't yours?
Source : food
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