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Onions and Tomatoes
1 pound of onions 1/2 pound tomatoes 1/2 ounce butter 2 ounces bread crumbs Pepper and salt Prepare the onions as in recipe, "Onions Baked With Grated Cheese." Put the tomatoes in fast boiling water for a few seconds, when the skin can be removed easily. Slice them. Butter a baking dish, and put a layer of the onions at the bottom. Now place the tomatoes over them, and put the remainder of the onions on the top. Dust a very little pepper and salt over each layer. Cover the onions with the bread crumbs, and break up the remainder of the butter, and place it over the dish. Bake for three-quarters of an hour in a hot oven.
A plain vegetable gratin from a wartime-era meatless book, built on three ingredients and a handful of crumbs. The one thing it does not tell you outright is the step that decides whether it works.
- The cross-reference is the hinge"Prepare the onions as in recipe" points to another page we do not have here, but the onions are almost certainly peeled and parboiled until nearly tender before assembly. Raw sliced onions will not soften reliably in 45 minutes under a crumb lid, so simmer them 10-15 minutes and drain well first.
- Drain hardParboiled onions and peeled tomatoes both carry a lot of water, and this dish has no thickener. Drain the onions thoroughly and let the sliced tomatoes sit a few minutes in a colander, or the crumbs will steam rather than brown.
- A hot ovenIn books of this period a hot oven is usually reckoned at roughly 425-450F (220-230C). At that heat check the crumbs at 30 minutes; cover loosely with foil if they colour before the vegetables are done.
- Weights, not volumes1 lb onions is two large or three medium; 1/2 lb tomatoes is two medium. 1/2 ounce butter is about 1 tablespoon, and 2 ounces of breadcrumbs is roughly a cup if they are soft and fresh, nearer half a cup if dried fine.
- The butter is thinPart of the 1/2 ounce goes to greasing the dish, so under a tablespoon is left to dot over the crumbs. Toss the crumbs with the melted butter before scattering them so the whole surface browns instead of a few buttered spots.
- SeasoningThe recipe asks only for "a very little pepper and salt." Onions and tomatoes both want salt; season each layer properly and taste the onions after parboiling.
- YieldServes two as a light main course with bread, or four as a side dish. It is short on protein for a main; a little grated cheese in the crumbs, as the companion recipe's title suggests, closes that gap.
Meatless cookery books multiplied around the First World War, when meat was scarce, expensive, or formally rationed, and a genre of "meat substitutes" appeared that substituted for meat mainly by occupying the centre of the plate. This dish is a gratin of the simplest kind: vegetables layered in a buttered dish under crumbs and browned. Onions and tomatoes suited such books because both were cheap and both kept reasonably well, and tomatoes in particular bring a glutamate-rich savour that a meatless dinner otherwise lacks -- something cooks judged by taste before it was named. The instruction to dip tomatoes in fast-boiling water for a few seconds to loosen the skins is one of the small techniques these books repeat constantly, and it has not changed.