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Stuffed Tomatoes
Take 6 or 8 firm, well-ripened tomatoes of uniform size, cut a slice from the stem end and scoop out the seeds, leaving all the pulp. Mix with 2 cupfuls of bread crumbs, 1 small onion minced fine, 1 tablespoonful of butter, and salt and pepper to taste. Fill the tomatoes with the mixture, set them in a baking-dish with just enough water to prevent them from burning. Bake until tender, taking care that they do not break. When done, take them up carefully with a spatula on individual plates, garnish with sprigs of parsley or cress, and serve at once. Cold minced-meat or force-meat may be added to the bread crumbs and will make a palatable stuffing.
A straightforward baked stuffed tomato from the era when bread crumbs were the default filler for anything hollow. A few points of translation and one structural warning.
- Oven temperatureThe original gives none. A moderate oven, around 375F, uncovered, for 25-35 minutes, until the tomatoes are soft and slightly slumped but still holding shape, suits the dish; a hotter oven risks splitting the skins before the filling is heated through.
- "Scoop out the seeds, leaving all the pulp"This is the hinge. Take out the watery seed jelly and reserve it, but leave the firm inner flesh attached to the wall so the shell does not collapse. Drain the seedy pulp and add only the solid part to the crumbs, or the stuffing turns to porridge.
- Bread crumbsThe original does not specify which. Crumbs from stale bread, rather than the fine sand-textured commercial kind, will take up the tomato liquid better; very fresh soft crumbs tend to go pasty.
- Salt the shellsNot in the original but worth doing: salt the hollowed shells lightly and invert them for ten minutes before filling. This draws off the water that otherwise floods the baking dish.
- The onionRaw minced onion will not fully soften in half an hour inside a tomato. Sweat it in the tablespoon of butter first, then stir the crumbs in off the heat.
- Water in the dishA quarter inch is enough, and it is only there as insurance against scorching. The tomatoes will release plenty of their own liquid.
- The minced-meat variation'Cold minced-meat or force-meat' most likely means leftover cooked meat or forcemeat, chopped. If you substitute raw forcemeat, cook it through before filling rather than relying on the bake, which will not reliably bring the centre of a large stuffed tomato to a safe temperature (160F for ground meat, 165F for poultry).
- YieldSix to eight tomatoes serves three or four as a side, or two as a light main with bread.