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Broiled Tomatoes
Choose large, firm tomatoes, cut them in halves, but do not peel them. Then place them in a broiler, dust with salt and pepper, and broil over a clear but moderate fire, skin side down, until tender (about twenty minutes). When done, lift them carefully to a heated plate, pour melted butter over them, and serve.
Or, toast slices of bread a nice brown, butter and lay on them the broiled tomatoes. Pour around Cream Sauce, and serve.
A gridiron recipe rather than an oven one: the "broiler" here is a hinged wire rack set over coals, and the whole method translates well to a charcoal grill or a heavy ridged pan.
- What "broiler" meansIn this period a broiler is a wire gridiron held over a fire, so the heat comes from below and the skin side takes the char. Under a modern overhead broiler the tomatoes cook from the top instead; a grill grate or a dry cast-iron pan is closer to the original.
- Fire and timing"A clear but moderate fire" means coals burned down past the flaming stage, ashed over and glowing — moderate rather than fierce heat. Twenty minutes suits coals; halved tomatoes under a modern broiler element or in a hot pan will usually soften faster, so judge by tenderness at the shoulder rather than the clock.
- Skin side down, and whyThe unpeeled skin acts as the structural element, forming a shallow cup that helps hold the tomato together and keeps its juice from dripping into the fire; this is presumably why the recipe says not to peel. Turning them cut side down will lose both the shape and the liquid.
- Choice of tomatoLarge and firm matters more than ripe. Meaty slicing or beefsteak types hold up; watery salad tomatoes and small round supermarket fruit slump before they are tender. Cut through the equator, not the stem end, so each half sits flat.
- Cream SauceThe Cream Sauce called for would be a plain white sauce: roughly equal amounts of butter and flour cooked together, then milk or cream whisked in and seasoned with salt and a little pepper. Make it while the tomatoes cook and keep it off the boil.
- YieldFigure one large tomato — two halves — per person as a side dish, or two halves on toast as a light lunch course. Both platter and plates should be hot; broiled tomatoes cool very quickly.
Grilling tomatoes over coals and serving them on buttered toast with a white sauce was a summer dish in American and English households of the late nineteenth century, by which time the tomato is often said to have shed its old reputation as suspect nightshade and become an ordinary July and August glut. Gridiron cookery had the advantage of keeping the coal range cold: a gridiron set over a bed of embers, or over the last of the morning's fire, heated the cook far less than an hour of baking, and dishes like this one let a household eat a warm vegetable course without stoking the stove. The toast-and-cream-sauce variation is the period's usual trick for turning a vegetable into a whole luncheon dish, the same logic that gave us creamed mushrooms and creamed chicken on toast.