Stuffed tomatoes

Stuffed tomatoes are one of the ultimate French comfort food, extremely easy to make and allowing just about any conceivable change to the basic recipe depending on personal taste, religious restrictions, or whatever. I can imagine making them with beef, chicken or lamb, curried, Mexican style, vegetarian... Basically, tomatoes are just waiting to be stuffed with whatever you want to put in them.

Anyway, the weather was brutally cold today (for October), and it made me crave this dish which is more appreciated in the winter.

Once the season has begun (and it has), all of the supermarkets and greengrocers sell huge tomatoes that are specifically labeled as "stuffing tomatoes." However, I was going to the Chinese supermarket anyway for other stuff, and I found some tomatoes there that seemed large enough for my needs, so I bought them.



As for the stuffing, the traditional stuffing is pork sausage meat, and I had already bought some yesterday. It is an extremely standard item in supermarkets, and we urban folk do not see any reason to tire ourselves out grinding pork and spices ourselves.



Here is what is in it.



Mmmm.... lots of E chemicals! Yummy. And food coloring too, which tips you off to the fact that the real color would be a disgusting grey if it were not tinted pink. I live in the modern world and I don't mind details like this.

However, it is extremely rare for me to accept such a product without adding some of my own ingredients, and this item is no exception.

So I got out some garlic, onion and cilantro and chopped it.



And then my twelve fingers deftly massaged the herbs and sausage meat all together.



I cut open the tomatoes and scooped out the pulp with a spoon. I had a brief debate with myself, wondering if I could find any use for the pulp in the next two or three days. Verdict: the pulp was flushed down the toilet.

Then I stuffed the tomatoes.



I carefully placed them in my baking dish.



Then I suddenly had a new idea and took them out again. Most of my stale bread gets thrown away, but every now and then I grind some up in the food processor because I sometimes need bread crumbs. Remembering that stuffed tomatoes can make a lot of juice, I decided to put them on a bed of bread crumbs. Another benefit of doing this was to stabilize them and keep them from suddenly rolling over at the wrong time.



And then I put them in the oven. I have no idea the temperature or the time that it takes to make this dish (can't be bothered to spend 30 seconds to Google it -- I have better things to do!). I just put the timer on 60 minutes and the temperature at 200°C and kept an eye on it all. The aroma was quickly magnificent.

I think I took them out after maybe 45 minutes.



They made less juice than I expected this time, but no problem. I scooped some crumbs into my plate anyway, knowing that the juices would flow as soon as I cut into the tomatoes.

Two is plenty for one meal for me. I might freeze the other two if I don't feel like eating the same thing again tomorrow. They freeze very well and heat up well, too, even though the tomato often splits open. Who cares?

An excellent and simple dinner in any case.



I'm sure that people have all sorts of variations to contribute to this recipe, so feel free to let the suggestions fly.