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To Dress Tomatoes
704. Boil them in a saucepan of boiling water for ten minutes, drain them, and either serve whole or mashed up, with a little pepper and salt, or roast them in a Dutch oven, taking care to turn them, and serve. A little beef gravy with a shalot is an improvement to the mashed tomatoes.
SALADS.
HOP TOPS SERVED AS ASPARAGUS (excellent). 705. Break off the young shoots of hops, tie them in bundles, boil them with a little meat in the water for twenty minutes. Serve as asparagus. The shoots of asparagus-kale may be boiled in the same way.
GREEN INDIAN CORN (as a Vegetable). 706. After removing the sheath and fibres from Indian corn or maize, it should be boiled for half an hour in water, and well salted. Serve as asparagus. Or, the corns may be taken out when done, and finished off as green peas, with a little butter in the pan.
Three short vegetable entries from a period when tomatoes were still treated with suspicion and boiled like turnips. The instructions are sound in outline but the timings belong to another era.
- Dutch ovenIn a Victorian kitchen this usually means a tin reflector screen stood in front of an open fire rather than the cast-iron pot the term now suggests. The nearest modern substitute is a hot broiler or a hot oven, with the tomatoes turned once.
- Ten minutes of boilingWhole tomatoes collapse into skin and water long before ten minutes. If you want them whole, roast them; if you want them mashed, halve them and cook them down in a pan so the liquid reduces rather than dilutes.
- ShalotA shallot, chopped fine. It goes into the gravy; soften it rather than browning it hard.
- Beef gravyIn period usage meat gravy generally means the strained juices from a roast or a reduced brown stock rather than a flour-thickened sauce. A few spoonfuls of well-reduced beef stock does much the same work.
- Hop shootsA genuine early-spring vegetable, available for only a few weeks and still sold at high prices in Belgium. Gather only from plants you know have not been sprayed, and cut the tender tips, discarding any stem that resists a fingernail. Twenty minutes is far too long; three to five minutes in salted water is enough.
- "Boil with a little meat in the water"A small piece of meat, such as bacon or salt pork, put in to flavour the cooking water. Remove it before serving.
- Indian cornMaize, sold now as sweetcorn. Half an hour suits tougher, starchier corn; modern sweet varieties are done in three to five minutes and turn to paste if held longer.
- Salting corn waterThe recipe salts the water well; if you prefer, season it lightly and salt at the table instead.
- ServingNo quantities are given for any of the three entries. "Serve as asparagus" would have implied the usual asparagus service of the day: buttered, on toast or a folded napkin.