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Roasted Tomatoes
From the stem of each tomato, cut out a small piece, then with a spoon remove a portion of the seeds. Drop a bit of butter into each division, and dust with salt and pepper. Lay on a buttered baking pan and place in a very hot oven, or in the roasting oven of a gas stove, twentyone minutes; they should be nicely browned. Transfer to squares of buttered toast, and serve.
A plain baked-tomato dish that works as a side for roast game or as a light supper on toast. The whole thing turns on high heat and firm fruit.
- "A very hot oven"In modern terms roughly 450-500F; period usage varied. The intent is to brown and blister the tomatoes before they collapse; a moderate oven will steam them into sauce instead.
- The twenty-one minutesThat timing assumes medium-large, quite firm tomatoes. Check at 15 minutes and pull them when the skins are browned and wrinkled but the fruit still holds its shape.
- Choose firm fruitRipe but dense tomatoes, cored and only partly seeded, hold up. Very ripe or watery ones will slump and flood the pan, which is why the recipe removes only "a portion" of the seeds rather than hollowing them out.
- "The roasting oven of a gas stove"Some gas ranges of the period had a separate compartment used for roasting, distinguished here from the coal range's very hot oven. In a modern oven, use the upper third, and a broiler blast in the last minute or two will do the browning if the tops are still pale.
- Butter and panA shallow rimmed sheet pan is right; a deep dish traps steam. Butter the pan generously, since the released juices will otherwise catch and burn at this temperature.
- The toast mattersCut and butter the toast squares while the tomatoes bake and plate immediately. The toast is there to take up the juice, and it goes soggy fast if it sits.
- YieldThe original gives no quantities. As a rough guide, allow one large or two small tomatoes per person.
"Roasted" here simply means cooked in the oven's dry heat rather than stewed, a distinction that mattered more when tomatoes often reached the table boiled, scalloped or in a made sauce. The buttered-toast base belongs to the same tradition as the toast served under roasted small birds, where bread is a sop for juices rather than a separate course.