No. 2842

Tomatoes Stuffed with Fresh Mushrooms

Tomates Farcies aux Champignons Frais

Chop up some clean fresh mushrooms, fry a chopped onion, and add it to these, and continue to fry until all the moisture is evaporated, then season and remove from the fire. Bind it with a little sauce, then with an equal quantity of bread-crumbs soaked and pressed, a few raw egg-yolks, adding some chopped parsley. Select fine, sound tomatoes, smooth and round, of even size, but not too large nor too ripe; cut out a piece from the top in order to open and empty out partially, then salt and drain them for a quarter of an hour, filling them afterward with the mushroom preparation, and smoothing the tops nicely. Range the tomatoes in a small bordered baking pan, bestrew them with bread crumbs and pour over some oil; cook for three-quarters of an hour in a slow oven.

← No. 2841 Tomatoes a la Gibbons-Sauted and Fried Mushrooms & Truffles No. 2843 Truffles in a Napkin or in a Croustade →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer gives a method rather than a formula, so the proportions are yours to set. Work from the filling backward: it should hold a spoon shape before it ever goes near a tomato.

The hinge: cook the mushrooms dry"Continue to fry until all the moisture is evaporated" is the whole recipe. Mushrooms are roughly 90 percent water, and any of it left behind will pool in the tomato and slump the stuffing. Keep the pan wide and hot and stop only when the chopped mushrooms squeak and begin to catch.
Slow ovenSomewhere around 300 to 325F by modern reckoning, though Ranhofer gives no temperature. Three-quarters of an hour at that heat lets the tomatoes soften without collapsing and sets the egg yolks gently; in a hot oven the skins are liable to split before the centres are hot.
Working quantitiesFor eight medium tomatoes: 1 lb mushrooms, 1 small onion, about 2 tablespoons thick sauce, and soaked crumbs equal in bulk to the cooked mushroom mixture (roughly 1 cup fresh crumbs soaked in milk or stock and squeezed hard). Two or three yolks bind that amount; Ranhofer's 'a few' suggests nearer three if the mixture seems loose.
"Bind it with a little sauce"Ranhofer does not say which; a professional kitchen would have had velouté, béchamel or reduced demi-glace to hand. A stiff béchamel or a spoonful of reduced meat glaze does the same job. It should be thick enough to cling, not to thin the mixture.
Soaked and pressed crumbsThis is a panade. Use fresh crumbs from a plain loaf, soak in milk or stock, then wring them out in a cloth or the filling will be wet. Dried packaged crumbs behave differently and give a pasty texture; save those for the topping.
Salting and draining the tomatoesThe recipe asks only that they be salted and drained for a quarter of an hour; that draws out enough juice to keep the shells firm. Do not skip it, and pour off what collects before filling.
Choosing the tomatoes"Not too ripe" is deliberate — a firm, slightly underripe tomato holds its walls through 45 minutes of baking. Round, thick-walled varieties work; large soft beefsteaks and thin-skinned heirlooms fall apart.
Pan and oilA "small bordered baking pan" is simply a shallow rimmed dish that fits the tomatoes snugly so they support one another. Olive oil over the crumbs is what browns them; a light film is enough, and a spoonful of the pan oil basted over halfway through helps colour.
YieldTwo stuffed tomatoes make a first course or a vegetable side; the recipe as scaled above serves four to eight depending on the role it plays in the meal.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894) records the repertoire of Delmonico's in New York, where he was chef for over thirty years, and its mushroom recipes read like an inventory of what a large brigade could do with a basket of champignons before cultivation made them a year-round staple. The filling here is essentially a duxelles — finely chopped mushrooms and onion or shallot cooked until dry, a preparation traditionally associated with the seventeenth-century French cook La Varenne and said to be named for his employer the Marquis d'Uxelles, though that naming is tradition rather than documented fact — extended with a panade and yolks so it will hold its shape as a stuffing rather than a garnish. The instruction to bind with "a little sauce" without saying which is a mark of the book's intended reader: a professional kitchen already had velouté and demi-glace standing at the stove, and the numbered cross-references throughout the volume assume you can fetch them. Stuffed tomatoes themselves belonged to the late-nineteenth-century vogue for the fruit in America, where it had shed its earlier reputation as suspect nightshade and become a fashionable table vegetable.