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To Bake Tomatoes
To bake tomatoes lay the tomatoes, after they have been peeled, in a buttered baking dish; season with salt, pepper and a little minced onion and a very little sugar; baste with melted butter and bake until nicely browned.
A little finely minced onion-about a tablespoonful to each quart of tomatoes-may be added to tomatoes.
A bare-bones vegetable side from a book that assumes the cook already knows what a baked tomato should look like. The original gives no oven heat, no timing and no quantity, so the useful work here is filling those in.
- Oven heatNothing is stated; a moderate oven, 350-375F, suits this. Higher than about 400F and the tomatoes collapse into liquid before the tops take colour.
- TimingWhole peeled tomatoes need roughly 30-40 minutes, halved ones 20-25. They are done when the edges have browned and the flesh has slumped but still holds its shape.
- PeelingCut a shallow cross in the base, drop into boiling water for 15-30 seconds, then into cold water; the skins slip off. This recipe assumes peeled fruit, as many of its contemporaries did; tomato skin tends to toughen and curl in a hot oven.
- Quantity and yieldA quart of peeled tomatoes is about 2 lb, or six to eight medium fruit, and serves four as a side dish.
- The onion, twiceThe recipe mentions minced onion in both sentences; the tablespoon per quart in the second reads as a rate for the first rather than an extra addition, though the text does not say so outright. Raw onion at that ratio softens in the baking time without needing to be sweated first.
- Sugar"A very little" means a pinch, half a teaspoon at most per quart, and only if the tomatoes are underripe or out of season. Ripe summer tomatoes need none.
- BastingMelted butter over the top, and repeat once or twice during baking. The tomatoes will throw off a good deal of their own juice, which pools and can be spooned back over as part of the basting.
- BrowningIf the tops are still pale when the tomatoes are cooked through, a few minutes under the broiler finishes them. A scattering of buttered breadcrumbs, common in the period though not called for here, gives a more reliable crust.
The tomato had only recently become an unremarkable American vegetable. Long grown but eaten cautiously, it moved into general use in the middle decades of the 1800s, and by the time this book was compiled it was cheap, widely canned, and assumed in most household manuals. Stewed or baked tomatoes were often served alongside roast meats and game, the acidity cutting rich, dark meat much as a fruit sauce or currant jelly did. The pinch of sugar reflects a common correction for acidity in underripe or tinned fruit.