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Tomato Stuffing for Peppers
Mix one cup tomato pulp drained from juice, one half cup bread crumbs, and one cup stock; add two tablespoons flour and two tablespoons butter which have been cooked together. Season with salt, cayenne, paprika and onion juice.
A component recipe: a thick tomato panada meant to be spooned into parboiled green peppers and baked. The whole thing hinges on getting the mixture stiff enough to hold its shape.
- Cook the roux firstThe two tablespoons flour and two tablespoons butter are cooked together, as the recipe states, then stirred into the tomato, crumbs and stock. The text does not say to cook the mixture further, but since it is meant to hold in a pepper, it is worth warming and stirring it until it thickens; a loose stuffing will weep out in the oven.
- Tomato pulpThe recipe specifies only pulp drained of its juice; fresh peeled tomatoes or well-drained canned tomatoes, chopped, both answer. Avoid passata or tomato sauce; the juice you are told to drain off is the difference between a stuffing and a soup.
- StockThe kind of stock is not specified; a light veal or chicken stock would suit. One cup is a lot of liquid for half a cup of crumbs, so expect to reduce it down, or hold back some of the stock and add it only if the mixture tightens too far.
- Bread crumbsRead this as dry crumbs from stale bread rather than the sandy commercial kind or panko. Fresh soft crumbs will absorb less and leave the filling slack.
- Onion juiceGrate half a small onion on a box grater and press the pulp in a fine sieve; a teaspoon or two is enough. It seasons without leaving raw onion texture in a filling that only gets a short bake.
- Cayenne and paprikaNo quantities are given; treat both as small pinches for colour and warmth, since this is not meant to be a hot mixture. Start with about a quarter teaspoon of paprika and adjust.
- AssemblingThe recipe is only the filling; no method for the peppers is given. In practice: halve and seed them, soften briefly in boiling water, drain cut side down, fill, and bake in a moderate oven until the tops colour.
- YieldAbout two cups of filling, enough for four to six pepper halves as a light entrée.
Lowney's Cook Book was published in 1907 by the Walter M. Lowney Company of Boston, a chocolate manufacturer, and compiled by Maria Willett Howard — one of many corporate cookbooks of the period that surrounded their advertising recipes with a full general household repertoire. Among its recipes are stuffed green peppers, the sweet bell pepper serving as an edible container filled here with a tomato mixture bound with a roux. The filling itself is essentially a thickened tomato panada, the same technique used for croquette mixtures, and it is seasoned with paprika and cayenne.