I had never thought to dress tomatoes with soy sauce until I came across a simple tomato wedges with soy sauce recipe in my friend Nancy Hachisu’s Japanese Farm Food cookbook. It’s so easy and good! Tomatoes love salt, and they really love the flavorful saltiness of soy sauce. Nancy’s recipe uses rapeseed (canola) oil and shiso leaves. The salad works just as well with olive oil and sliced basil, which is what I’ve used here. Here’s a tip for working with fresh raw tomatoes. Don’t refrigerate them! The cold temperatures of the refrigerator will make your tomatoes mealy, and will adversely affect their flavor. If you pick a garden tomato and it isn’t quite ripe, just let it sit on a counter for a few days. It will ripen on its own. There are no measurements in this recipe. Just sprinkle the ingredients over the cut tomatoes and adjust to your liking. Serve at room temperature.
