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Tomatoes Stuffed with Meat or Fish
A very nice dish for a luncheon, or Sunday evening or informal supper, is to fill tomatoes with a force-meat made with cold ham and mushrooms. For 1 dozen nice firm tomatoes, scalded and peeled, take 1 small cupful of finely minced ham, the same amount of chopped mushrooms, and half of fine bread crumbs. Mix with it the juice and pulp scooped from the centre of the tomatoes, season with salt and pepper, a dash of cayenne, 1 tablespoonful of finely minced parsley, and 2 tablespoonfuls of melted butter. Mix all thoroughly and fill the tomatoes. Bake twenty minutes in a hot oven, basting the top occasionally with melted butter. Serve hot.
Cold chicken or veal, or any nice cold meat may be used with or substituted for the ham. Or use any nice cold fish like bluefish or whitefish. For a lunch dish they may be chilled after baking, and served with mayonnaise dressing on top.
A straightforward stuffed-tomato recipe built to use up cold roast meat. Two things in the text need translating: the oven and the shorthand measurement for crumbs.
- "A hot oven"In period usage this is roughly 400-450F; around 425F works well. Twenty minutes at that heat is enough to set the filling and colour the top without collapsing the tomato walls.
- "Half of fine bread crumbs"This means half the previous measure, so half a cupful of fresh fine crumbs. Dried commercial crumbs absorb far more liquid; if that is all you have, use a scant half cup and expect a denser filling.
- Force-meatSimply a seasoned stuffing mixture of minced meat and binder, not a sausage-style emulsion. Everything here is already cooked, so the baking is about heating through and browning.
- Scalded and peeledThirty seconds in boiling water then straight into cold water slips the skins. Peeled tomatoes are more fragile, so hollow them gently and set them shoulder to shoulder in a buttered dish so they hold each other upright.
- The pulpScooped pulp and juice carry a lot of water. Drain it in a sieve, or briefly reduce it in a pan, before mixing in — otherwise the filling slumps and the tomatoes weep.
- MushroomsRaw chopped mushrooms will release liquid into the stuffing. Sautéing them in a little of the butter first, until dry, gives a much firmer result and better flavour.
- Cold cooked fishThe bluefish or whitefish variant works, but only with fish that is properly cold-stored and freshly cooked. Flake it in at the end rather than mincing, so it does not turn to paste.
- Yield and servingA dozen tomatoes serves six as a lunch or supper dish, two apiece, or twelve as a side. The chilled version with mayonnaise wants tomatoes baked slightly less so they keep their shape once cold.