How to slice a ripe tomato

• Remove the tomato's core. Placing you thumb approximately one inch from the end of a paring knife, insert the knife point into the tomato at an angle, anchor your thumb in the middle of the core, and rotate to cut out the core.

• Use a utility knife to cut the tomato in half.

• Place the cut side down on your cutting surface. Place the point of your utility knife just past the cut tomato, and draw the knife towards you, slicing the tomato.

• Curl the fingers of your left hand into your palm and hold the tomato so that you can use the knuckles of your fingers to control the thickness of your slices. (Use this technique for all slicing. It's a safe way to prevent you from inadvertently cutting the tips of your fingers!)

• Did we say that a sharp knife is the key to successfully slicing a ripe tomato?

Hi, my name is Marc Bauer. I'm from the French Culinary Institute. Today I like to show you how I slice a tomato.

First you remove the core with a paring knife. By putting your thumb right about an inch from the point, and place the thumb right in the middle of the core, and twist in an angle. The core is removed.

Once the core is removed, I like to use my utility knife. Now you have to make sure that your blade is sharp. Therefore I will use a steel and slide the blade all the way through from one side to the other of the steel a couple of times. That helps into my slicing through the tomato.

Cut in half, and then you see I keep the point of the knife down on the table. You can see is that a sharp blade really helps in cutting through a tomato. Sliced tomatoes.