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To Stew Tomatoes
Peel and slice the tomatoes, stew until thoroughly cooked, then season with salt, pepper and butter (and, if liked), a small quantity of onion. Cream may be used in place of butter. Simple stock may be used for stewing tomatoes. The stew may be thickened if desired, by the addition of bread crumbs.
A method rather than a formula: no quantities, no times, no pan size. The judgment calls are all yours, so here is where they fall.
- Peel them properlyScore the skins, drop the tomatoes in boiling water for 30-60 seconds, then into cold water; the skins slip off. Unpeeled tomatoes leave curls of skin in the finished stew, which is exactly what this recipe is trying to avoid.
- "Thoroughly cooked" means reducedSliced tomatoes throw a great deal of water. Expect 20-30 minutes uncovered over medium heat before the mass holds together rather than sitting in pink liquid. Stir now and then; the sugars scorch on the bottom once it thickens.
- A working quantityTwo pounds of ripe tomatoes gives about three cups stewed, serving four as a side dish. Season with roughly a teaspoon of salt, a good grind of pepper, and 1-2 tablespoons of butter stirred in off the heat.
- Cream instead of butterAdd it at the very end and do not let it boil hard afterward. Tomato acid will curdle cream; heavy cream (36% fat or more) holds up far better than half-and-half.
- "Simple stock"Presumably a plain, unseasoned, unthickened broth rather than a rich or reduced one. Use it sparingly here -- a quarter cup is plenty, since the tomatoes supply their own liquid and you are trying to drive moisture off, not add it.
- Bread crumbs as thickenerDry crumbs, not fresh, and start with two tablespoons stirred in during the last five minutes. They swell considerably; too many and the dish turns stodgy.
- Onion"A small quantity" means a tablespoon or two, finely chopped. Soften it in the butter first rather than dropping it raw into the pot, or it will still be crunchy when the tomatoes are done.
- Off-season tomatoesCanned whole tomatoes, drained and chopped, work honestly here and need only 10-15 minutes. Winter supermarket tomatoes will give you a watery, sour stew no amount of butter fixes.
Stewed tomatoes were a fixture of the American table from the mid-nineteenth century onward, once canning had made the fruit a year-round staple; the old suspicion of the tomato as a nightshade, often said to have kept it off the table earlier, belongs largely to folk tradition. The recipe's structure -- one base method with butter or cream, water or stock, thickened or not -- is typical of turn-of-the-century household manuals, which taught principles to cooks expected to improvise with whatever was in the pantry rather than shop to a list.