Tomato Flowers with Cottage Cheese Salad

When Miss Hauser taught us how to make these in high school cooking class, we peeled the tomatoes after rotating them over the flame on our gas stoves on a fork stuck in the stem end. You can also blanch tomatoes to remove the peels. I prefer to use a variety of tomato which is easy to peel while it is raw. This works best with fully-ripe tomatoes.

A fancy-looking dish from ordinary ingredients. I don't have Miss Hauser's exact recipe, but I do remember being surprised that MSG and a little extra salt were added to the cottage cheese. The MSG really does make a difference in flavor, but I don't use it anymore.

Cooking Science: In China and Japan, where the use of monosodium glutamate is commn, there is a theory that our tongues have receptors for a "meaty" flavor in addition to sweet, sour, salty and bitter. Monosodium glutamate is the sodium salt of an amino acid (one of the building blocks of protein), glutamic acid. I believe it is sometimes extracted commercially from sugar beets. It is also present in hydrolyzed protein products. If you react to it with a headache, flushing or other symptoms, don't use it. The higher the dose, the more likely a reaction is. A 5 mg dose reportedly causes a reaction in many people.

I have a cookbook from the 1950s, and era when exploration of the uses of processed foods was in full swing, in which almost every recipe with a savory flavor contained MSG. It is most familiar in the US under the brand name ACCENT. It is used in a variety of foods, especially soups and salad dressings (like Ranch). Some evidence suggests it increases weight gain (perhaps by making food tastier).

Ingredients
1 pint cottage cheese, regular or low-fat
1/8 teaspoon salt - optional
1/16 teaspoon monosodium glutamate (ACCENT) - optional
2 Tablespoons diced or chunked green bell pepper
1 - 2 Tablespoons minced scallions (white part, maybe with some of the tender inner green tops) and/or up to 2 Tablespoons chives

3 or 4 medium to large tomatoes
Salt and fresh ground pepper
Lettuce, if desired

Directions
Mix all ingredients except tomatoes and allow flavors to blend for a few minutes to overnight, refrigerated.

When ready to serve, peel tomatoes and remove a slice from the stem end so that they will sit flat on a plate. Remove the shallow white cores from the cut end and place cut side down on a cutting board. Carefully cut across tomatoes to make eight segments, stopping an inch or less from the bottom. Gently spread into "flowers", sprinkle with a little salt and fresh-ground pepper and allow to drain for a minute or two. Carefully transfer on a spatula to individual serving plates, over lettuce leaves or on a bed of shredded lettuce if desired.

Pile cottage cheese mixture into the center of the tomato flowers. Serve.

Variations:

1. I cut the peppers in chunks because I have trouble digesting them. They will flavor the salad, but I can push them aside when eating the salad. If your tummy REALLY can't take raw green peppers, substitute ripe red, orange or yellow bell peppers or canned diced mild chiles or pimento. Or add minced Italian parsley in place of peppers.

2. Use a different hearty salad mixture in tomato flowers - chicken, tuna, potato, etc. Let me know if you have other ideas.