Tomato Loaf
Put a layer of tomatoes in the dish; season with salt, pepper and a little onion, then a layer of bread spread with butter, another layer of tomatoes and onion, then bread and butter, finishing with tomatoes and onions; cover and bake an hour. Do not use much of the tomato juice.
A layered tomato and buttered-bread pudding of the sort that once accompanied roast game. The original gives no quantities, no dish size and no oven setting, so the proportions below are the working assumptions a modern cook needs.
- The hinge: keep it dry"Do not use much of the tomato juice" is the whole recipe. Sliced fresh tomatoes should be salted and drained in a colander for 20 minutes; canned tomatoes should be drained hard and broken up. Excess liquid turns the bread to paste rather than letting it set into a sliceable loaf.
- Oven temperatureNo setting is given. A moderate oven, around 350F, for the specified hour suits the dish. The original keeps it covered throughout; if you want the top layer dried and coloured, uncovering for the last 15 minutes is a modern departure, not something the recipe asks for.
- Proportions to work fromFor a 2-quart baking dish: about 2 lb fresh tomatoes (or two 14-oz cans, drained), 6 to 8 slices of day-old bread, 3 to 4 tablespoons butter, one small onion sliced thin. That serves six as a side dish.
- The breadUse a firm white or country bread, slightly dry, crusts left on; fresh soft bread collapses. The recipe asks only for 'bread spread with butter', so butter the slices before layering; the fat waterproofs the crumb a little.
- Onion"A little onion" means a seasoning, not a layer of its own. Slice it paper-thin or mince it, otherwise it will still be crunchy after an hour under a lid.
- Covered bakingThe recipe says to cover it for the whole hour. The steam softens the onion and cooks the tomato down; uncovered, the top layer is liable to scorch before the middle is done.
- ServingLet it stand 10 minutes out of the oven before cutting, or it will not hold a slice. It is a side dish, cut in squares, and is better warm than piping hot.
This is a tomato scallop under a grander name. Calling it a "loaf" seems to reflect a turn-of-the-century fondness for anything that could be baked in a mould and cut in slices at table — nut loaves, cheese loaves and vegetable loaves all appear in books of this vintage. The buttered-bread-and-tomato layering itself is probably much older and thoroughly frugal, a way of using bread past its best.