In the original recipe Sophie Dahl recommends a mix of white and brown crabmeat. I’d wasn’t sure I’d had crab that hadn’t first been through Mr. Shipham’s factory and emerged as paste.  A sidewards scuttle at the chiller cabinet and I soon realised why (and the thinking which lay behind the diminutive jars of Mr.S’ paste ) brown crabmeat, £2.49 for 100g, white £4.99 . I came home with brown alone.

However back in the kitchen a tip of the knife, tasting scoop of the  ’ painstakingly handpicked‘ crab did transport me to straight to Cornwall with no M5 inbetween to spoil things. And if undertaking the journey for real, I’d now know to take pestle and mortar, finely chopped red chilli and garlic clove to crush tailback woes into oblivion. If last week’s risotto’s pleasure was soothing stirring, this was pulverising and pounding .

The only thing I might change (apart from a supermodel bank balance to buy all ingredients) would be to decrease the amount of garlic. Just as when, after a day at the beach, the soft sand which was so welcome between your toes, becomes gritty and irritating as it shakes itself loose from everything on your return home, so the garlic breaks free from mingled flavours to linger on ….but otherwise this bowl of spaghetti, seafood and tomato is paddle in a cool rockpool.

Here’s the index of Paul Merretts’ home grown tomato recipes:

• Aubergine, Tomato and Coriander Salsa
• Tomato and Chilli Jam
• Roast Pepper Stew with Red Onion, Sausage, Tomato and Courgette
• Tomato Soup – either hot or chilled with Basil
• Warm Tomato Tart with Rocket Salad
• Crispy Squid with Fennel, Tomato & Lemon Coleslaw
• Warm Chorizo Salad with Rocket, Little Gem, Oven Dried Tomato and Parmesan
• Panzanella style salad with tomato and Little Gem lettuce
• Oven Dried Tomatoes (sliced in half, sprinkled with garlic, thyme leaves , salt and olive oil and popped in very low oven – 50C – for 2 hours)

And for the ones which don’t turn red in time:

• Green Tomato Salsa with Spring Onion and Green Chilli
• Green Tomato Chutney
• Fried Green Tomatoes
• Cucumber, Green Tomato and Mint Raita

They all (as do the non-tomato recipes) sound absolutely delicious….I’m looking forward to trying as many of them as I can in my very non Michelin starry kitchen.

Photo by Carly&Art

But in Lunches and Suppers: Macaroni Cheese and Tomato.  Made as you would expect and finished off as follows:

Decorate the top with alternate rows of sliced tomato and grated cheese and then to pass the Macaroni Cheese under a hot grill until bubbling hot and brown. Serve with hot buttered toast or a salad.

Which sounds so delicious and comforting that it might be just the thing to tempt a bear to put down the honey pot and have a taste.

In the middle of the decade Delia published ‘One is fun!’ A book the social archaeologist could accurately date stamp from the list of prop suppliers: Harrods, The Conran Shop, David Mellor, Osborne and Little.

Despite the word fun and the flourish of the exclamation mark in the book’s title I’m not convinced Delia fully bought into the notion of cooking for one.

‘Happy Endings’ and ‘Mixed Doubles’ feature through out and sound more fun than cooking for ‘The Lone Vegetarian’ which from personal experience is exactly what being a vegetarian was back then; no matter how many were seated round the table.

So what did Delia devise for the Lone Tomato Lover back in the 80′s?

She got it so right:

• ‘It’s hard to beat a plateful of skinned, sliced tomatoes, sprinkled with crushed rock salt, freshly milled pepper and a few drops of fruity olive oil’.

And yet so wrong:

• Chilled Marinated Trout with peppers and tomatoes

And somewhere in between:

• Fresh Tomato & Courgette Soup
• Tomato Sauce for pairing (she’s got me at it now) with Deep-Fried Gnocchi or Cheese, Sage and Onion Sausages
• Provencale crusted cod with Provencale Tomatoes

So probably not the tomatoes finest hour. On the other hand I consider her advice to:

 ’Keep a jar of Hellman’s Mayonnaise in the larder ‘

and if it all becomes too much to

‘Settle down in front of a good TV programme with a super snack and a glass of wine and still feel cosseted ! ’

to be timeless words of wisdom which have stood the test of time in a way so much from the decade has not !

Still with Sophie Grigson today but a little further back in time.

Sophie’s Table was published in 1990 (although the nautical stripy T shirt and hair styling of the cover photo sing 1980s Bananarama).

Eggs and Fish feature today. I don’t connect fish and tomatoes (even a fish finger sandwich seems better suited to mayo) but am slowly being brought round.

This sauce for grilled, fried or poached fish reads like a summer wake up call. Maltese Tomato and Caper Sauce. Onion, garlic, olive oil base with peeled and seeded fresh tomatoes and tomato paste. Brought to life with the zing of capers, fresh mint, lemon juice plus zest.

For grilled meats or hot pasta – Raw Tomato Sauce. Onion, skinned and seeded tomatoes, garlic and basil leaves; all finely chopped and mixed with olive oil and lemon juice.

Whiting and Tomato Gratin is a little more homely. Whiting fillets, finely chopped shallots, skinned and roughly chopped tomatoes and thyme, laid in an oven proof dish and covered with double cream and grated cheddar, before going to bubble and brown in the oven.

Far from home comes Tomato Bredy, a Cape Malay recipe from South Africa. Cooked for 3 hours this is a stew made with equal parts (1kg each) onion, skinned and chopped tomatoes and oxtail and flavoured with bay leaves, chillies, cinnamon sticks and garlic.

Too exotic? I prefer stirring a Tomato Risotto into being. Along with stuffed tomatoes (and there’s an overlap) I think tomato and rice is a good kitchen duo to work with this year.

My forensic examination of the stuffed tomato detects a 3 way split:

• Use only the tomato shell (& lid)
• Use the shell (& lid) and some of the flesh, chopped up as part of the filling
• Cut the tomatoes in half horizontally and pile the stuffing/topping onto each tomato half before baking

Here Baked Tomatoes are the latter.  A mix of breadcrumbs, parmesan, thyme or marjoram dotted with butter make a crunchy topping.

Similarly simple but rich – Tomato Polonnaises. Finely chopped shallot sautéed in butter. Add halved tomatoes, cook and pour in some double cream. Like the shirt of the Incredible Hulk, I can see torn hunks of crusty bread mopping up the tomatoey cream juices.

As I can for Huevos A La Flamenca. First sautéed and simmer a fiesta of onion, garlic, parsley, ham, tomatoes (skinned and chopped), green beans, chorizo, peas and paprika. Once cooked, this happy mix is transferred to an ovenproof dish, eggs cracked over the top and the whole dish cooked in the oven.

Or if that has too many notes try Baked Eggs with Tomato and Mozzarella. A mix of cubed Mozzarella, skinned and seeded chopped tomatoes, finely chopped shallots, marjoram and olive oil put into an oven proof dish. Again as a bed for cracked eggs, with the whole dish cooked in the oven but this time in a bain-marie.

( And in an odd twist of music inspired synchronicity, the book also contains a recipe for Bananes Gratinees. Bananas gently fried in butter , sprinkled with paprika and baked in the oven with a breadcrumb and grated cheddar topping.  Could have this have been the tousled trio’s top tour rider dish ?)

Another vintage veggie book from the shelves.

Colourfully illustrated and published in 1989; Stones was a restaurant (now retired and replaced by the National Trust) based at Avebury in Wiltshire, a site famous for its prehistoric stones.

So if not Stones; then what of Cooking with Tomatoes?

Straightforward recipes; perhaps with more flair than the earthwareness of Cranks ?

Fresh Tomato Soup with Cream Cheese.  An onion, garlic, potato and celery base with fresh tomatoes, the flavours of dill and ground clove. Cream Cheese stirred in just before serving.

Two Quiches:  French bean and Tomato or Courgette and Tomato.
French beans and tomato make their regular pairing; no almonds this time. Although nuts do feature – in the pastry. The French bean version is made with pecan nut pastry and the Courgette with walnut pastry.

Tomato Sauce. Two recipes for similar but different takes:

Light white wine-tomato sauce. An onion, celery and garlic base to which is added chopped red and green peppers, pureed fresh tomatoes, marjoram and basil and a large glass of white wine.

More than basic tomato sauce. An onion, celery, carrot and garlic base with fresh tomatoes and tomato paste, flavoured with basil and marjoram and the West Country with the addition of cider vinegar.

Fresh Tomato Salsa with Avocado. Tomatoes, spring onion, coriander, parsley, olive oil, lime juice and chilli powder – pureed and chilled.

And then one to add to the growing Stuffed Tomato Hall of Fame – Filled Provencal Tomatoes.  Which starts with a base of sautéed onions, garlic, mushrooms, marjoram, rosemary, thyme and red wine which once ready is popped into a blender and  joined by stuffed olives and breadcrumbs.

Which once whizzed, is ‘beefed’ up with beaten egg yolks, grated cheese and folded in beaten egg whites. All of which is piled into scooped out beefsteak tomato shells, topped with a cheese slice, the tomato lid to hold it all in and then baked in the oven….

Which somehow reminds me of old jokes about elephants, minis ( or should that be 2CVs)  and phone boxes but can I remember the punch lines…..

Here are the other Tomato ideas from the Moosewood world cooking book – Sundays at Moosewood Restaurant.

Italy

Traditional and simple – Bread & Tomato Salad, Tomato Crostini, Marinated Tomato Salad, Tomato & Mozzarella Antipasto.

Bulgaria

Spicy Tomato Dumpling Soup. The heat comes from hot chilli powder and the dumplings are made from semolina topped with a sharp, grated cheese (Kashkaval or Cheddar).

India

Tomato Kachumber Salad – refreshing with a kick. Tomatoes, spring onions, fresh mint, ginger, lime juice and black mustard seeds which have been heated and popped in hot vegetable oil.

Tomato & Apricot Chutney

Mexico

Tomato, Lime & Tortilla Soup. Tomatoes, onion, garlic, chillies, cumin, oregano and lime juice – are the body and flavour. Grated cheese and crumbled tortilla chips the texture and topping. Good enough to stick a cocktail umbrella in.

Fresh Tomato Sauce – Tomatoes, chillies, coriander and lime juice. I think we may just need to order some more tortilla chips and a beer for a big salsa dipper.

Pompano Tampico – Flounder rolls with Tomatoes, Almonds and Coriander. This one had me foxed, floundered in fact. I then realised it meant Flounder – the fish. Fillets rolled into parcels and baked with a sun-dried & fresh tomato, almond and coriander filling and served with a garlicky , peppery butter.
That combination of tomatoes and almonds popping up again…..

Provence

Tomato Sauce – more sedate. Onions, garlic sautéed in olive oil as the base with bay, thyme, marjoram and tomato paste adding the high notes.

Chile

Green beans and tomato salad. The green beans are cooked, cooled and then added to sliced fresh tomatoes with a lemon, oil and garlic dressing. A fresh take on green beans in a cooked, garlicky tomato sauce.

Middle Eastern

Roasted Chilli and Tomato relish. Chillies and Peppers – roasted, charred skin removed and chopped. Olive oil and lemon juice, cumin and fennel seeds and fresh parsley. Love the idea of this as a pitta dip.

No more from the UK . Although I enjoyed Brussels sprouts described as ‘little bite-sized cabbages’ (making them sound like an exotic canapé) and that their status is ‘very popular’. Although to be fair the Brussels Sprouts haters probably haven’t tried them with Horseradish as suggested here.
The UK section also features Red Pottage which I first came across in Gail Duff’s vegetarian cookbook.

Today it’s back to Moosewood. Post the Mollie Katzen era, still good recipes but without the personalized presentation. Still if size matters, then ‘Sundays at Moosewood Restaurant’, published in 1990 has over 700 pages!

The recipes are a collection of the Sunday night menu. A night which differed from others in that the menu featured the food from one particular ethnic, national or regional cuisine. 18 of which are featured in the book. 8 of which feature tomatoes as the signature part of the recipe. ( Must note which 10 cuisines lack winning ways with tomatoes )

As there’s a world of tomato ideas to cover, I’m going to divide this post into two, 2nd part tomorrow.

Today I’m seeing how 4 different cuisines approach the task of tomato stuffing. If 2009 was the summer of roasting tomatoes, I feel 2010 might be the summer for stuffed. There’s something satisfying about the notion of something being container and content. They also seem quaintly old fashioned and due a revival.

So which corner of the globe can put the stuffing back into the tomato?

Chile

I’m not sure it’s this one. It maybe because they’re cold – maybe they will appeal more come summer?
The tomatoes are hollowed out and stuffed with a mix of cottage cheese, finely chopped onion, olives, parsley, breadcrumbs, mayo and lemon juice.

Provence

Tomato Farcies. The stuffing is garlic sautéed in olive oil with basil, breadcrumbs and Parmesan. This mix is then piled on top of (more than stuffed into) the tomatoes and baked in the oven.
Perfect for a terrace with a view and a long stemmed, chilled glass of Rose.

Croatia

Mushroom-stuffed Tomatoes.
More substantial but as with the Chilean tomatoes, the actual tomato flesh isn’t used. The stuffing is onions and mushrooms sautéed with marjoram, parsley and paprika into which beaten egg is added before filling the tomatoes. The tomatoes are topped with a combination of grated cheese ( Kashkaval or Cheddar) and then popped in the oven to bake.

British Isles

Tomatoes with Forcemeat.
Harking back to medieval times when meat was supplemented with minced vegetables, herbs, nuts and fruits to make it go further.
The stuffing is sautéed onion, mushrooms and the tomato flesh, flavoured with sage, rosemary and parsley. To which cooked rice, raisins and paprika are added. The filled tomatoes are then topped with breadcrumbs and baked in the oven.

So at the moment, leading the way in the stuffed tomato revivalist movement, are Croatia and UK. ( And although they snuck in as a borrowed photo I’m think Swiss with Swiss cheese and a meaty filling needs to be investigated further as well !)

Photo by Tambako the Jaguar

Today I’m writing about my favourite Vegetarian cook books of all time. Although in truth, hard as it is to say –  they’re low on tomato. But so good and gorgeous on everything else, I can’t not include them.

The author and cook is Mollie Katzen. I’ve 3 of her titles:

• Moosewood Cookbook: the book of the restaurant ( Ithaca, New York) published 1977
• The Enchanted Broccoli Forest:  published in 1982, by when she had moved to Berkeley, California
• The Vegetable Dishes I Can’t Live Without: Published 2007, 30 years on from the first !

The books are special for the recipes and for themselves. Food, art and literature all in one. 

‘Illustrated and Hand-Lettered’, their pages feel like the author is handing on personal recipes, illustrated with doodles made on their pages as she passes time in the kitchen, waiting for something to cook.

So when the summers comes and tomatoes are plentiful in number and flavour what shall I make ….

From the Moosewood Cookbook:

• Gazpacho  Soup- chilled for 4 hours (definitely a long way !)
• Minestrone Soup
• Spicy Tomato Soup
• Green Tomato Chutney
• Italian Tomato Sauce – Onion and Garlic base with flavour from Basil, Oregano and Bay but including Green Pepper (which you may have noticed I have a thing about in tomato sauces as plain wrong !)
• Mexican Hot Sauce – Onion and Garlic base with flavour and kick from Cumin, Cayenne, Coriander, Chilli ( perfect Friday night food)
• Nachos Sauce – Mexican Beer- Cheese sauce (  this too….)
• Ratatouille
• Tomato – Egg Curry
• And then this which I want to try but fear could go horribly wrong. Billed as ‘exotic and time consuming’ ….introducing…. Green Tomato Rellenos which are:
  Green Tomatoes Stuffed with Breadcrumbs, Cheese, Onion, Garlic, Cayenne and Cumin. Coated in batter (beaten egg whites , egg yolks folded in).  And ……Pan fried for a fluffy omelette type coating  or
  Deep fried for a puffy, crispy, fritter. Tomato Fritter – could there be more two more, never knowingly twinned but as it turns out perfectly coupled words ?

From The Enchanted Broccoli Forest:

• Cream of Tomato Soup – 3 variations
• Chilled Tomato-Egg Soup – which with Tomatoes; juice and fresh, Horseradish, Mustard, Tabasco and ….Coarsely Grated Hard Boiled Egg sounds like a brunch Bloody Mary; breakfast eggs included
• Green Gazpacho - with green tomatoes instead of red (how come that makes it sound even colder ?)
• Marinated Tomato Sauce. Raw for summer spaghetti with Tomatoes, Basil, Olive Oil, Garlic and Mozzarella
• Enchilada Sauce: Salsa Verde – cooked and simmered with green tomatoes
  Red Sauce – uncooked using ripe, red tomatoes. And just in case it’s ever the last question on Millionaire; here’s the perfect definition of an Enchilada:
  ‘A soft corn tortilla wrapped around a filling and baked in a sauce usually the filling (cheese, chicken or beef) is plain and bland while the sauce is traditionally the spicier element’
• Bulgarian Salad which featuring as it does Feta, Onion, and Olives sounds Greek to me (!)
• And then under the wonderful title of ‘Cold stuffed Things’ – Tomato Fans – in which a tomato is sliced, toast rack style, and slices of Avocado and Hard Boiled Egg  are slotted into the gaps, all dressed with Creamy Mustard Dressing.  Does that combination work ? Does the tyranny of Avocado, Tomato and Mozzarella need to be overthrown or was this an early 80’s revolution which failed?

From The Vegetable Dishes I Can’t Live Without:

• Tomato- Basil Jam
• Oven-Scorched “Stewed” Tomatoes
• Oven Ratatouille
• Greek-Style Spinach with Caramized Onions, Tomatoes, Yogurt & Pinenuts

And lastly but deliciously …

• Gratineed Tomatoes – ‘Thick slices of Tomato, seasoned with herbs and sautéed until crispy on the outside and warm and soft within….’

All this and more will be mine come summer and the return of ….The Enchanted Tomato Garden.

Inside the Moosewood Cookbook:

I could hold the big freeze responsible for being unable to think about growing and instead obsessing about food, food, food. After all, the thought of picking your own tomatoes in August, delicious as that might be, offers little here and now insulation against snow drift stuckness.

But that would just be a handy meteorological hook. Truth is, when the world outside has turned starched handkerchief white, happiness inside, can be found in the yellowing pages of Penguin and Pan Paperbacks from distant decades.

In 1979 for £1.25 you could purchase the useful and inspiring Vegetable Cookbook by Nika Hazelton. How many of the 82 vegetables featured in her A- Z peel ‘n’cook-a-thon you could have actually then bought (or heard of) is a different matter.

The author’s other titles :  The Art of Cheese Cookery, The Continental Flavour, Reminiscence and Ravioli as well as volumes on Scandinavian, Swiss, Belgian and Danish cooking mark her out as well travelled and palated . She may have had our measure though…. ‘I consider over-long cooking the death of almost all vegetables’.

In their dedicated section Tomatoes get 5 lead roles :

• Soup: Fresh Tomato
• Sauces: Pizzailoa and Salsa Fria
• Stuffed: Roman Stuffed Tomatoes – mingling rice, garlic, parsley and cinnamon
• Fried: Thick slices, fried in olive oil with fresh basil, parsley and mint

Elsewhere tomatoes pop up with Aubergine, Cabbage, Chard, Courgette, Okra and Pumpkin :

• Baked Aubergine, Mozzarella, Eggs and Tomatoes
• Cabbage and Tomatoes
• Chard with Tomato Sauce
• Courgette and Tomato Casserole (Gratin)
• Okra, Onion and Tomato Stew
• Pumpkin and Tomato Casserole

And my choice as imaginary beacon, to keep me drooling and alive whilst waiting for the St Bernard: Broad Bean puree, served with thick tomato slices, sautéed in butter – as an accompaniment to lamb or roast chicken.

But you may prefer Curried Bananas or Curried Turnips…….