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Ritz-Carlton Tomatoes
Butter rounds of toast, arrange them in shallow pan. Place slice cheese, then of tomato, on each round. Sprinkle with sugar, salt, pepper, onion and sweet pepper minced fine. Top with dot of butter and grated cheese, set pan in hot oven, bake till cheese is lightly browned. Garnish with parsley.
An open-faced cheese-and-tomato toast built for the broiler-hot oven of a hotel grill kitchen. The whole thing hangs on the tomato being firm enough to hold its shape.
- "Hot oven"Period usage generally implies something in the region of 400-450F, though the book gives no temperature. The point of the high heat is that the cheese browns before the toast underneath softens; a moderate oven risks soggy bread and weeping tomato. Watch it rather than timing it, and pull the pan when the cheese is lightly browned as the recipe directs.
- Toast the bread firstThe instruction to butter "rounds of toast" is not decorative. Untoasted bread absorbs tomato juice and collapses. Cut rounds with a biscuit cutter from firm white sandwich bread, toast until dry and pale gold, then butter.
- Sweet pepperThis means a bell pepper, green or red, minced fine — not a chili and not paprika. Along with the onion it wants to be cut small enough to soften in the short bake.
- The sugarA pinch per round, no more. It is there to correct the acidity of an under-ripe or out-of-season tomato. With ripe summer fruit you can leave it out.
- CheeseThe book does not specify. A slice of mild American or a firm young Cheddar under the tomato, with sharper grated Cheddar or Parmesan on top, gives the browning the recipe asks for. Fresh mozzarella releases too much water here.
- Tomato slicesCut about half an inch thick, one slice per round, and salt them on paper towel for a few minutes to draw off surface moisture before assembling.
- Yield and servingFigure two rounds per person as a first course or lunch dish. They must go to the table straight from the pan — they do not hold.