In my quest for a perfect shakeshouka (eggs in poultry) I figured out I need less acidity in the dish, and have read that acidity in tomatoes varies widely. I have read that very ripe tomatoes have lower acidity, but how do you know it is ripe? Most are picked before ripening before they are shipped. Does the ripening that follows after shipping matter in acidity?
How to measure the ripeness of the tomatoes
aciditychemistrytomatoes
Related Solutions
Litmus paper is quite inexpensive. Edmund Scientific has 100 strips for US$1.95.
Another effective method (not mentioned in the link SAJ14SAJ provided) is salting. Dice the tomatoes, generously salt them and leave them in a sieve for 20 minutes or so. You probably want to squeeze off some of the juicy bits first. Flip the tomatoes half-way through the resting time. That will draw off a lot of water without pre-cooking the tomatoes (which will also work, but will change (not necessarily negatively) the taste of the tomatoes. If you use kosher or other coarse salt, you'll be able to shake or wipe off quite a bit of the salt before proceeding with your application.
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Best Answer
Smell and touch your tomato. The softer it is, the riper. Also, the more it smells like a sun-ripened tomato, the riper. The smell is not only stronger, it is different from the smell of a badly ripened (but still red) tomato, or worse, previously refrigerated tomato. If you don't know how a good tomato smells, you'll have to learn it by smelling tomatoes before cutting them and remembering how they smell compared to their taste. Or go to somebody with a tomato garden in a reasonably sunny location, pick the ripest tomato and smell it before eating. I doubt that anybody in the world has developed the vocabulary to simply describe what you're looking for in the taste, so you have to experience it for yourself.
Don't go by color, that depends more on variety and can also be created with artificial ripening without imparting sweetness.