No. 2838

Tomatoes Broiled, Hot Mayonnaise Sauce

Tomates Grillees, a la Sauce Mayonnaise Chaude

Throw some sound tomatoes in boiling water to remove the skin; cut them across in two, season with salt and pour oil over. Place them on a hinged double broiler and broil on a show fire, basting frequently with oil. Dress them on a hot dish and cover with hot mayonnaise sauce (No. 433). The mayonnaise sauce may be served separately if desired.

Tomatoes are frequently served broiled without any sauce, simply cooked as above.

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For the Modern Kitchen Do not make this as written.

A three-line recipe whose success rests entirely on heat management: gentle, patient cooking on the tomato and gentle, patient cooking on the sauce. Rush either and you get a collapsed tomato under a broken emulsion.

"A slow fire" means indirect, moderate heatThe text as printed reads "broil on a show fire" -- almost certainly a misprint for "slow fire," i.e. indirect, moderate heat; a broiler of Ranhofer's day worked over or before coals rather than under a gas element. Aim for medium-low grill heat, or, adapting to the oven, roast the halves in a moderate oven (around 375-400F) rather than putting them under a top element on high. Fast, fierce heat blisters the outside before the interior softens and the halves slump.
Hinged double broilerThis is the wire grill basket with two hinged faces that clamps the food and lets you turn everything at once. A modern fish basket or grill basket does the same job; a rimmed sheet pan works if you are using the oven, since the tomatoes then never need turning.
Skinning is optional hereSkinning -- Ranhofer directs it: the boiling-water dip loosens the skin. Be aware that skinned halves are fragile on a grill and tend to fall apart, so if you are cooking them in the oven or on a pan you may prefer to leave the skin on and lift it off after cooking, departing from the original.
Salt and drain firstSeason the cut faces and let them sit ten minutes before oiling. Tomatoes are mostly water, and drawing some of it out concentrates the flavour and reduces the pool of liquid that otherwise dilutes the sauce on the dish.
Hot mayonnaise sauce (No. 433)Check the cross-reference for the actual method; period "mayonnaise chaude" is generally a warm egg-yolk emulsion rather than cold mayonnaise warmed up, and is handled much like a hollandaise. Keep it well below a simmer and off direct heat; if it climbs too hot the yolks scramble and the emulsion splits. Make it last, and hold it barely warm.
TimingFirm ripe halves need roughly 8-12 minutes total, turned once if you are grilling. They should be hot through and lightly coloured but still holding their shape. There is no useful way to salvage a tomato cooked to collapse.
Yield and serviceFigure one medium tomato, halved, per person as a side. Serving the sauce in a boat, as Ranhofer allows, is the safer choice at table: it keeps the tomatoes from steaming under a blanket of sauce and lets guests take as little as they like.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894) records the kitchen of Delmonico's in New York, and its vegetable chapters show how thoroughly the tomato had been absorbed into fine dining by the end of the century. Only a few decades earlier, by an often-repeated tradition, American cookbooks still treated the tomato with suspicion and cooked it for hours to tame it; by Ranhofer's day it recurs throughout his numbering, raw in salads, stuffed, baked, in cases, and here simply oiled and grilled. The dish is essentially a French treatment of an American staple: tomates grillees given a warm emulsified sauce, the same logic that puts hollandaise on asparagus. The note that they are "frequently served broiled without any sauce" is the more common survivor, and grilled tomato halves remained a fixture of hotel breakfast and grill-room menus on both sides of the Atlantic well into the twentieth century.