A Meal Worthy of Summer’s Finest Fruit

As we all know, a perfect ripe tomato is an unmatched culinary experience: sweet and savory, with a soft, juicy flesh that’s never mushy or mealy.

In my opinion, cooking one of these tomatoes is a crime. They must be consumed raw, or the texture, the brightness, and the juiciness will be lost.

For this reason, I often eat my tomatoes perched atop thick slices of toast or tossed into a panzanella. A cold noodle salad, however, is another, perhaps surprisingly ideal, venue for a perfect tomato.

In my favorite version, big, juicy wedges tangle together with sliced shallots, slippery noodles, and crispy, crumbled tofu. It’s a hearty meal that keeps the tomatoes front and center—right where they belong.

Tomatoes are uniquely savory thanks to a high concentration of glutamate, an amino acid that lends umami flavor (you might be familiar with it as MSG, aka monosodium glutamate). Glutamate is also present in soy sauce, and just a dash sprinkled over a vine-ripened tomato helps to dial up the savoriness even more.

Here I also incorporate rice vinegar for a kick of acid, plus a thinly sliced shallot for brightness and crunch, then I let the mixture marinate for ten minutes or so while I prepare the rest of the salad. In that time, the salt in the soy sauce helps to draw out delicious, umami-flavored juices that puddle in the bottom of the bowl. Later, this liquid will infuse the whole dish with the essence of tomato.

While the tomatoes marinate, I heat a bit of oil in a large skillet, then pour it into a small cup filled with minced garlic and chile flakes. This spicy, infused oil will be tossed into the noodle salad later.

Next I fry up some crumbled tofu that’s been tossed with more soy sauce and some brown sugar. The sugar doesn’t add a whole lot of sweetness but rather helps the tofu to brown and caramelize.

I like to use super firm tofu for this (which I buy at Trader Joe’s), but extra firm will work nicely too. I cook the crumbles until they’re golden and crispy in places and the bottom of my pan has turned deep brown and sticky (but not burnt). I urge you to scrape up the fond and incorporate it into the tofu for extra caramelized flavor.

Japanese somen noodles are my favorite type to use for this salad, though any thin wheat noodle will do—even angel hair pasta works in a pinch. Once they’re cooked, it’s key to rinse the noodles under cold water to cool them down and prevent them from sticking together, then drain them thoroughly so that your salad doesn’t become watery.

When they’re well rinsed and drained, the noodles are tossed together with the tofu, the tomato mixture, and the spicy oil. In the bowl, the tomato juices and additional oils combine to create a slippery, savory dressing that soaks into the tofu and coats the noodles.

The big, juicy wedges of tomatoes, though, remain the star, adding bursts of sweetness and acidity to every bite. Remember, the best tomatoes of the year are available right now—so hurry up and try this recipe before summer comes to a close.