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Stuffed Tomatoes, Swiss
Neatly wipe six even, fresh, ripe red tomatoes, then cut a cover from the top of each and with a spoon carefully scoop out the meat without disturbing the shells. Season the interior with half teaspoon salt, half teaspoon sugar and two saltspoons white pepper, then keep on a plate with their covers till required. Heat a tablespoon melted butter in a frying pan, add two ounces of calf's liver cut in small pieces, one ounce finely chopped or grated raw ham, two chopped shallots, half a bean garlic, half teaspoon chopped parsley. Season with two saltspoons salt, one saltspoon cayenne and saltspoon ground mixed spices; fry on brisk fire five minutes, stirring meanwhile. Place in mortar, add tablespoon grated Swiss cheese and two tablespoons sherry, thoroughly pound until a pulp, then press through sieve into a bowl. Fill the tomatoes with this preparation, place covers on, lay on a tin, place a bit butter on top of each. Set in oven twenty minutes. Remove, dress on a hot dish and serve.
N. B. Place the meat of the tomatoes in the demi-glace pan]
A rich liver-and-ham forcemeat baked inside tomato shells, written in the shorthand of a professional kitchen. Two things need translating before you start: the measurements and the assumption that a demi-glace pan is simmering nearby.
- SaltspoonsA saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon. So the filling takes about 1/2 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp cayenne and 1/4 tsp mixed spice, with the same again in salt, sugar and white pepper divided among the six shells.
- Mixed spicesProbably a quatre epices-style blend: pepper with nutmeg, clove and ginger or cinnamon. Any warm charcuterie-style blend works; a quarter teaspoon across the whole filling is a background note, not a flavour.
- Half a bean of garlic"bean" here most likely renders the French gousse (pod), i.e. a clove. Half a clove, finely chopped.
- Oven heatNo temperature is given. Bake at 375-400F; twenty minutes at that heat softens the shells without collapsing them. Choose firm, slightly underripe tomatoes despite the instruction, or they will slump.
- The mortar stepPounding and sieving is what makes this a smooth farce rather than a hash. A small food processor does the pounding; still push the result through a sieve if you want the texture the recipe intends, since liver leaves sinew behind.
- Raw hamGrated raw ham means an air-dried ham -- prosciutto, Bayonne, speck. It is cured, not fresh pork, and it is there for salt and perfume. Season lightly at first and taste before adding the rest.
- Brisk fire, five minutesFive minutes over high heat is enough to cook two ounces of diced calf's liver through and then some. Take it off while it is just firm; overcooked liver turns granular and the sieving will not rescue it.
- The demi-glace noteThat final line tells the cook not to waste the scooped tomato pulp -- it goes into the stockpot of brown sauce that ran all day in a professional kitchen. At home, keep it for a sauce or soup.
- YieldSix tomatoes, one each as a first course or garnish for a roast. The filling is very rich and this is not a main dish.
"Swiss" here is often taken to signal the grated Gruyère-type cheese in the forcemeat rather than any Alpine village original -- stuffed tomatoes were a standard hotel-kitchen preparation across French-influenced Europe by the turn of the twentieth century, varied by whatever went into the stuffing. The method is straight cuisine classique: a small quantity of offal and cured ham cooked hard, pounded in a mortar, sieved to a purée, and used as a garnish rather than a portion. The instruction to send the tomato pulp to the demi-glace pan is the clearest sign of the book's origins in a professional brigade, where nothing left the station unused and a sauce base was always at the simmer. Tomatoes as a vessel were a comparatively recent fashion in Anglo-American cookery of the period, the fruit having, by the traditional account, only fully shed its long reputation for unwholesomeness in the nineteenth century.