Tomato Roses – they stole the show!

I thought I would be clever and post a recipe called ‘Crab-filled Fish Paupiettes with White Wine and Butter Sauce.’ Photographing fish on a plate can look quite bland, so I decided to add a Tomato Rose to the plate to add more colour. I wound up liking the Tomato Roses so much, I decided to forget about the fish (for awhile) and instead feature these little roses.

Tomato Roses are so easy to make- all you do is peel the tomato skin (like an apple) and wind the peel up tightly to form a ‘rose’ (see directions below). These roses are so versatile, you can use them for just about anything. After I made the roses, I started walking around the house saying to myself, “Hmmm, what else could I use a Tomato Rose for?”

Well, you could place one in the middle of a salad as a centrepiece feature:

Or, you could use the roses as a table centrepiece for a more formal dinner. Here, I placed three tomato roses on a glass cake stand. I think the arrangement looks quite nice and a tomato rose is a lot cheaper than buying real roses!

The more I look at these roses, the more I think they look real! What do you think?

Now back to my original recipe- ‘Crab-filled Fish Paupiettes with White Wine and Butter Sauce.’ This recipe involves rolling a piece of flat fish around some crab filling, poaching it in liquid on the stove top, then finishing it with a white wine and butter sauce. The crab stuffing is easy to make, but you do need to make sure you don’t overcook the fish. For the wine/butter sauce, you need to gradually whisk in the cold butter pieces to ensure that the sauce thickens properly.

The recipe often uses Sole fish since it is flat and thin, making it easy to wrap around the stuffing. However, I haven’t seen Sole where I live, so I use either Flake fish or Red Snapper.

Crab-filled Fish Paupiettes with White Wine and Butter Sauce

A few pointers before we begin:

1. Flatten the fish before adding the filling; shape it so that a wider end is nearest to you and the farthest end tapers into a narrower point.

 2. Spread the filling on the fish, leaving a margin of about 1 inch around the edges. Roll up the fish, starting with the wider end nearest you.

3. Poaching liquid for the fish should cover at least 1/2 of the fish.

How to Make a Tomato Rose

1. Starting on the bottom of the tomato, cut a circle with a knife, to begin the paring of the tomato skin.

2. Continue cutting the skin of the tomato with a width of about 1/2 inch, as if paring an apple. Cut in a circular motion while turning the tomato.

3. When you get towards the end of the tomato, reduce the width of your paring cuts. After you have finished, the tomato skin should look like a long snake. With the shiny side of the tomato skin facing outward, start curling the skin into a tight rose shape, finishing with the base of the tomato.

4. When you get to the end, tuck the base of the tomato under the rose. Finish by adding several basil leaves for decoration.