# The three-ingredient dish chefs can't stop making > Two San Diego chefs landed on the same late-summer plate, and it needs no heat and almost no skill. - Title: The three-ingredient dish chefs can't stop making | Shortify - Summary: Two San Diego chefs landed on the same late-summer plate, and it needs no heat and almost no skill. Raw fish, ripe melon, and strained tomato water is the… - Keywords: cooking, crudo, tomatoes, summer, recipes, three-ingredient, dish, chefs, can't, stop, making, Slate Magazine - Source: Slate Magazine — https://slate.com/life/2026/09/summer-tomato-melon-crudo-recipes.html?via=rss - Author: Noah Lederman - Published: 2026-09-13T14:00:11+00:00 - Read time: 2 min - Topics: cooking, crudo, tomatoes, summer, recipes ## Best dish at the bar At Fleurette in La Jolla, other diners raved about truffled burgers and rare spot prawns. The writer's pick was a raw plate of common ingredients he'd never seen combined. > Simple elements, common ingredients, and yet I'd never seen them combined on a plate before. ## Fish, melon, tomato water Call it Fish Crudo with Melon and Tomato Water. Three parts, no cooking, basic knives and a sieve. ## Tuna that looks like melon Chef Travis Swikard's Bluefin Crudo layered ruby tuna over thin watermelon slices, fanned on a fried rice cake floating in tomato water. > The melon looked almost identical to the fish. ## Why it balances Sweet watermelon carried salt and citrus, the tuna went rich and buttery, and tart, spicy tomato water pulled the whole thing back into line. ## Borrowed from crazy water Swikard took the idea from acqua pazza, the Italian dish where fish poaches in a thin tomato broth. > When I build a dish it's about taste, texture, aroma. It's a balance of flavors. ## Melon in disguise He compressed the watermelon for 45 minutes with yuzu and colatura di alici, a fish sauce aged from anchovies for three years, until it read as tuna. ## The fish stays alone Swikard barely touches the tuna beyond curing it between kombu sheets for four hours. Most of its seasoning comes from sitting next to the melon. ## A second chef, same trio A day later at Atelier Manna, Andrew Bachelier served the same three things in green: hamachi, honeydew, green tomato water, under tomato gelatin and whipped tofu. > How could three simple ingredients that require no heat and basic kitchen implements not be on every menu? ## Skip the crown The gelatin, tofu, and purple flowers were beautiful and beside the point. Strip them off and the dish still works, which is your permission slip. > it would still have been just as marvelous ## Buying the fish Look for sushi-grade, or ask your fishmonger what's freshest and say you're making crudo. Fifteen minutes in the freezer firms it for clean slices and handles bacteria. ## Swaps you can actually buy No yuzu? Equal parts lemon and lime juice as a marinade. No colatura? Asian fish sauce does the job. For melon, buy whatever is ripe and local. ## Let gravity make the water Puree juicy tomatoes, with garlic, shallot, and serrano if you want, then hang it in cheesecloth or a fine sieve overnight. Salt the clear liquid lightly and serve. > gravity does all the work ## Key takeaway Raw fish, ripe melon, and strained tomato water is the whole dish. Everything else on the restaurant plate is decoration you can skip.