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Tomatoes for Garnishing
Put six or eight large tomatoes at the bottom of a saucepan, laying them flat and not one on top of the other, pouring over enough gravy to cover them. Cook slowly for about twenty-five minutes, turning so as to leave them equally done, but not to injure them. Thicken the liquor with a little butter rolled in flour, season with a little cayenne and salt, boil up once, remove the pan from the fire, take out the tomatoes, and they are then ready for use.
A garnish rather than a dish: whole tomatoes gently stewed in gravy until hot through and glossy, then lifted out to sit alongside a roast or a grill. The whole point is that they emerge intact, so everything here bends toward keeping the skins from bursting.
- The hinge: barely a simmer"Cook slowly" means the liquid should shiver, not bubble. A rolling boil splits the skins and the tomatoes collapse into the gravy, which defeats the purpose.
- What "gravy" means hereIn cookery of this period gravy generally means the strained roasting juices or a brown stock-based sauce, not a flour-thickened American-style gravy. A good beef or veal stock reduced slightly, or the deglazed pan juices from whatever you are serving, does the same job.
- Twenty-five minutes is long for modern tomatoesThe firmer, thicker-skinned tomatoes typical of the period would likely have stood up to it better. Ripe hothouse or heirloom tomatoes today will probably be done in 10 to 15 minutes; test with a skewer, which should slide in with only slight resistance.
- Skins on or offThe recipe says nothing about peeling, which suggests the tomatoes go in whole and unskinned; the skin helps them hold their shape. If you prefer them peeled, blanch and skin first and cut the cooking time, handling them with two spoons rather than tongs.
- Butter rolled in flourThis is beurre mani", kneaded cold, roughly equal parts by weight. Whisk it in off a hard boil, in small pieces, then bring the sauce up once to cook out the raw flour taste.
- Turning themTurn once at the halfway point, gently, using a spoon under each tomato rather than a fork. A punctured tomato weeps and goes slack.
- SeasoningCayenne here is a whisper, no more than a pinch for the whole pan, meant to lift the gravy rather than register as heat.
- Yield and useSix to eight tomatoes garnish six to eight plates. The recipe says only that the tomatoes are lifted out and "ready for use"; it gives no direction for the thickened gravy left in the pan.
Oscar Tschirky's book is often described as the working notebook of a large hotel kitchen, and this entry reads like one: a preparation held ready in quantity, drawn on as plates go out. Whole cooked tomatoes were a standard garnish for grilled meats through the late nineteenth century, the tomato having, by the familiar account, moved in a couple of generations from suspicion to near-ubiquity on the American table. The technique of cooking a vegetable directly in the meat gravy rather than in water is thoroughly of its time; it kept flavour concentrated, wasted nothing, and meant the garnish arrived at the plate already tasting of the dish it was garnishing. Butter rolled in flour, the thickener called for here, is a long-established liaison in European cookery and survives in professional kitchens as beurre mani", still used for exactly this purpose: tightening a sauce at the last moment without starting a new roux.