Food Waste to Good Taste: 3 ways to use your cherry tomatoes

‘Food Waste to Good Taste’ is an exciting campaign that we are running in partnership with @HKU_Science and @Green.Hospitality. The study will measure the nutritional value of food scraps from restaurants across Hong Kong to highlight the local food waste issue in two folds: from an environmental perspective and from a health perspective. The campaign hopes to encourage restaurants and consumers to be more conscious of the loss of nutritious food waste and optimise food scraps into new recipes to further reduce food waste.

As this series draws to a close, we finish on a high with ways to use your cherry tomatoes! This collaboration with Green Hospitality and HKU Science was important for us: 1) to highlight ways to reduce food waste and 2) to maximise food scraps into new recipes. Not only are we reducing our environmental footprint, but we are benefiting from the nutrition of these foods! It goes without saying that there are SO many recipes out there that embrace zero-waste cooking. But we hope that you have enjoyed the recipes we have been sharing over the past few weeks to inspire you to unleash your creativity in the kitchen using food scraps or surplus!

Frozen Cherry Tomato Granita

If you have cherry tomatoes lurking around in your pantry and unsure what to do with them, pop them into the freezer before they turn bad. Leave them in there until they are fully frozen. This recipe is as simple as it gets: freeze, grate, eat. Then, you can add this granita onto whatever salads you wish to. We suggest grating the cherry tomatoes onto fresh burrata, drizzling olive oil and balsamic vinegar and finishing it off with fresh basil. 

Ingredients:

• Cherry Tomatoes 

Recipe:

• Place the tomatoes in the freezer until you need them. 

• Using a grater, grate the tomatoes into a bowl and use it in however ways you choose to!

Roasted Cherry Tomato Sauce

Ingredients:

• 1-1.5 kg or 2–3 lbs of cherry tomatoes (without stems)

• ¼ cup of olive oil (also have a bit more for roasting)

• 1 large yellow onion (diced)

• 1 tablespoon of fresh garlic (minced)

• A handful of fresh basil leaves

• 3–4 sprigs of fresh thyme (without stems)

• salt and pepper to taste

Recipe:

• Preheat the oven to 200ºC or 400ºF.

• Lightly season and coat the cherry tomatoes in olive oil then spread them out evenly onto a large baking pan or dish. 

• Roast for around 25-30 minutes when tomatoes are starting to burst and shrivel. 

• Remove the tomatoes from the oven and cover it loosely with aluminium foil.

• In a deep-bottomed sauce pot, add the olive oil. Heat over a medium heat until the oil begins to shimmer. 

• Add the onions and cook them for 4-5 minutes, until they have softened.

• Stir in the garlic and cook for another few minutes, until the garlic is golden. 

• Add the roasted tomatoes including the cooking liquid from the pan, the herbs and combine all of the ingredients together. Season to taste.

• Lower the heat to low, and cover the pot partially with the lid to leave a small gap.

• Let it simmer for a minimum of 25 minutes and up to an hour, stirring every now and again. 

• Remove the pot from the heat and let it cool for 15 minutes. 

• Transfer the sauce to a blender and blend until the sauce is at your preferred consistency. 

• Distribute the sauce into air-tight containers. The sauce can be kept for up to 1 week in the fridge or 3 months in the freezer.

Photo credits to Fork Knife Swoon

Pickled Cherry Tomato

This recipe is so delicious! What we love is the prickling and pickling of the tomatoes that allow for the flavour to come through. It's the perfect addition to your salads or accompaniment to fish, chicken or beef. We suggest slicing them in half and using them in sandwiches or stir-fry.

Ingredients:

• 30 cherry tomatoes

• 3 tablespoons of fish sauce

• 6 tablespoons of rice vinegar

• ½ teaspoon of sugar

• 1 Thai chilli, finely chopped

Recipe:

• To prep the pickling marinade, mix in all of the wet ingredients, the sugar and the chopped chilli in a bowl.

• Lightly prick the tomatoes with a toothpick all around. 

• Place the tomatoes in a container (that can be closed; either Tupperware or pickling jar) and pour over the marinade. 

• Refrigerate for a minimum of a day before eating (to maximise the flavours) but no longer than 4 days.

Photo credits to PickledPlum