How to Make a Simple Roasted Tomato Vinaigrette

With all the excellent produce available during the summer months, it would be fun to write about yellow tomatoes and provide you with some recipes illustrating their simple but complex characteristics.

So I went to a new chef friend, Chris Beane, and asked him for recipes that would bring out the incredible flavors of these pommes d’amour (love apples).

Chef Chris is a native of Utah but has traveled some during his 22 years of professional cooking. He didn’t go to culinary school but learned his trade on the job, starting at the Utah Seafood Company and then moving on to other popular SLC sites like Ruth’s Diner, Santa Fe, and Red Butte Cafe.

He currently is working at Campagne Specialty Foods, preparing their daily takeout. When I approached Chef Chris for this article, I told him I was looking for recipes that didn’t include many ingredients and were not difficult to make. He gave me his simple Pomadoro (tomato) sauce for pasta and his Wood Grilled Yellow Tomato Vinaigrette that he makes for Campagne.

I looked at him and said, "Oh yeah, we all have access to a wood-burning grill," but he assured me there were ways around it, and these recipes would display the light freshness of the tomatoes. Chris gave me the recipes in "chef talk," so I asked him many questions to help translate.

Questions and Answers

RG: What if I don't have a wood grill?

You can roast the tomatoes in the oven or on a Weber grill. In the oven, roast them at approximately 400° F for 20-30 minutes until brown, put them in a covered container, and let them cool down in the refrigerator. When I make this vinaigrette, I usually make a couple of quarts, so I grill a bunch of tomatoes. So I recommend you roast a bunch of tomatoes and use the remaining ones as a side dish or for making other sauces.

RG: What is Chef's Blend oil, and what can I use instead?

Chef’s Blend is a mix we use at Campagne and sell to restaurants. You can use a blend of 60% canola oil and 40% olive oil at home. We don’t use 100% olive oil because it would overpower the flavor of the other ingredients.

RG: Why wait to add the oil last and slowly pour it in?

Oil and vinegar don’t naturally mix well and will break (separate) if you don’t add the oil slowly at the end. This is called emulsifying and is how you get your dressings thick and satiny in texture. Also, the mustard helps emulsify the oil and vinegar.

I hope you try these recipes from Chef Chris and enjoy the feature of having the chefs answer the questions. Please check out my Novice to Pro page for more recipes and interviews.

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