Tomato Bread

Another milestone in tomato sandwich technology

My award-deserving post on the best tomato sandwich of all time still stands as one of my prouder moments in the history of this newsletter. Tomato in three forms, homemade mayo according to my definitive guide, and—of course—homemade sourdough: pure genius. Recently, though, since tomato season is now in full swing, it occurred to me as I processed some of last year’s ferments that the bread part of that equation might also benefit from a bit of tomatofication.

See, one of those aforementioned ferments was a garum I made from the skins and seeds of tomatoes that I processed into sauce last summer. After straining it I had a lovely liquid (that I’ll be using in all sorts of fun ways over the coming months) and the solids, which consisted of those skins and seeds plus the rice koji that I used to break it all down into deliciousness. I blended those up into a nifty stiff paste, and used some of it in the bread.

Because approximately none of you have access to these tomato garum solids, Fear not! The following recipe provides a handy substitution using common ingredients.

This bread also features tomato in another form, along with some flattering aromatics, and the result is pretty ridiculously great not just for tomato sandwiches but for just about anything your heart could desire. It’s deeply savory and complex, with that very kid-friendly squishy sandwich bread texture that everybody loves. It’s freaking fantastic, and absolutely a world away from lame supermarket bread in that it has no additives, refined sugars, or other garbage in it.

You could easily bake this dough into rolls or burger buns too. In the unlikely event that there’s any left over, the stale ends make insanely tasty croutons. My world famous sweet potato rolls are wonderful, but I think this recipe is even more my jam. It’s one of my best recent inventions, and I’ll be keeping it in regular rotation long after tomato season is over.