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Tomatoes, Stewed (INGREDIENTS for dish)
INGREDIENTS for dish for 4 or 5 persons.-8 tomatoes, pepper and salt to taste, 2 oz. of butter, 2 tablespoonfuls of vinegar. AVERAGE COST, 1s. 6d.
TOMATOES, STUFFED.
Slice the tomatoes into a lined saucepan; season them with pepper and salt, and place small pieces of butter on them. Cover the lid down closely, and stew from 20 to 25 minutes, or until the tomatoes are perfectly tender; add the vinegar, stir two or three times, and serve with any kind of roast meat, with which they will be found a nice accompaniment.
TIME.-20 minutes.
SEASONABLE in autumn.
A plain butter-stew of sliced tomatoes, meant as a hot relish beside roast meat rather than a vegetable dish in its own right. Almost everything hinges on the closed lid and the late addition of vinegar.
- Quantity and yieldEight tomatoes, with no weight given; the recipe is sized for four or five people, and from the serving instruction it is clearly an accompaniment to roast meat rather than a main vegetable.
- "Lined saucepan"This means a copper pan lined with tin, specified because bare copper reacts with the acid in tomatoes and vinegar. Any stainless steel, enamelled or non-stick pan does the job; avoid unlined cast iron or aluminium.
- Lid down closelyNo liquid is added at the start. The tomatoes must sweat in their own juice under a tight lid or the pan will catch before they soften, so use a heavy pan and the lowest steady heat.
- TimingTwenty to twenty-five minutes gives a soft, collapsed, jammy result, which is what is wanted here. Watery modern hothouse tomatoes may need the lid off for the last five minutes to drive off liquid.
- The vinegarIt goes in at the very end and is stirred through only two or three times before serving. The recipe does not say which vinegar; malt or cider suits the roast-meat pairing, and since two tablespoons is assertive you may prefer to add one and taste.
- ButterTwo ounces is 55 g, a generous amount for eight tomatoes and deliberately so, since the buttery juices are half the point. The recipe has you place small pieces on top rather than melting it first.
- Peeling and seasoningBeeton does not peel the tomatoes; the skins will roll up into strips during stewing and can be lifted out if that troubles you. Season in layers as you slice, since the fruit throws off a lot of juice.
- Cost noteThe "1s. 6d." is a Victorian household costing and has no bearing on anything you will pay now.
Tomatoes entered the ordinary English kitchen slowly, and Beeton's "seasonable in autumn" marks the point before glasshouse and imported fruit made them a year-round item: in the 1860s and 70s they were a late-summer and autumn crop, and recipes of this kind treat them as a savoury accompaniment. Stewing them down with butter and finishing with vinegar puts this squarely in the tradition of hot sharp relishes served beside roast beef and mutton, the same slot occupied by stewed onions or a sharp sauce. The instruction to use a lined saucepan is a small piece of period technology: copper pans were standard in well-equipped kitchens, and the direction is generally understood as a precaution against acidic foods touching the bare metal.