Are you looking for a new tomato salad recipe? Longtime readers of SpiceboxTravels may recognize this recipe from when I first published it seven years ago. It’s a very simple recipe that relies (and showcases) the best summer tomatoes. And it’s from a surprising source– my father, who doesn’t cook at all. The first time I made this salad, seven years ago, I was hope taking care of my mother, who had broken her hip. While I am a doctor, my bigger role when I am acting as a caregiver for any of my family is as the cook. So during that visit, I spent my days cooking healing meals for my mother (and father) as well as doing my best to stockpile their freezer with several weeks’ worth of meals. That summer, I brought home a bag of beautiful beefsteak tomatoes from a farmers’ market, and my father asked if I could prepare them the way they enjoy them in Taiwan, with a simple soy sauce-ginger dressing.  (What he actually said was “with soy sauce and some kind of spice”– remember, he’s not a cook!) I didn’t grow up eating this salad, so I asked my mom about it.  She said that it’s a common way to that people in the Taiwanese countryside, especially in the South, where my parents both grew up, eat tomatoes, and she never thought of it as anything special.  She actually forgot about it for many decades after relocating to Taipei, and then the US.  It wasn’t until my parents had moved back part-time to Taiwan after retiring in the US that they began to eat tomatoes this way again. This is an example of a non-recipe recipe in which the delicious and refreshing whole is much greater than the sum of its parts. Please add it to your summer tomato rotation and let me know what you think.

Taiwanese Tomato Salad

Serves: 4 as a side or starter

Ingredients

2-3 medium, very ripe beefsteak or heirloom tomatoes
a thumb of ginger (about 2 inches)
1 tsp sugar
2 tsp soy sauce

Method

1. Core and slice tomatoes into wedges and place into a bowl.
2. Peel and grate ginger (using a Japanese ginger grater or a rasp grater, like a Microplane), and add it and its juices to a small bowl with the sugar and soy sauce.  Adjust for gingeryness and sweetness.  Stir until sugar is dissolved.
3. Pour sauce over the tomatoes, and allow to sit for 15-30 minutes before serving.  Arrange on a plate to serve, and optionally garnish with thinly sliced scallions.