Roasted Tomatoes Stuffed with Herbed Rice

Today, a very simple Italian dish, which I have been making quite often recently.

There are many varieties of dishes featuring stuffed tomatoes--raw or baked. They can be stuffed with different fillings cold or warm. This one is probably my favorite version of roasted tomatoes stuffed with just rice and herbs.

But, as it often happens with simple dishes, the taste of the dish depends on the quality of the ingredients and, in this case, tomatoes. My first dish was made with smaller, campari type of tomatoes. It was wonderful as campari tomatoes are usually sweeter and more red than others. But they are also smaller and harder to stuff and you also need more of them per person. Second time I tried tomatoes on the vine. The dish was good but tomatoes were a bit more watery and less sweet. Third time, I used just the local larger tomatoes, which were very ripe, and this was the best combination of size, color, and taste.

Tomatoes are often stuffed with rice, typically Arborio. Lightly cooked Arborio rice also makes the stuffing in my version. But because roasted tomatoes are more of a fall dish than other fresh tomato dishes, I also used a lot of more fragrant herbs than just basil, which is often paired with tomatoes. A little bit of Parmesan, 30 minutes in the oven, and a wonderful and light roasted tomatoes dish is ready.

Roasted Tomatoes Stuffed with Herbed Rice
(Serves four)

Ingredients:
8 ripe medium tomatoes,
1/2 cup Arborio rice,
1 garlic clove, minced,
3 tbsp mixed, fresh herbs (oregano, marjoram, thyme, parsley),
2 tbsp freshly grated Parmesan cheese,
3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil.

Preparation:
1. Cook Arborio rice for about 5 minutes, drain on a colander.
2. Cut off the tops of the tomatoes and set them aside. Take the bottoms and using an ice cream scoop, or a grapefruit knife, hollow them out and set aside. Put the scooped out tomato flesh and juice in a medium bowl.

3. Drain extra juice and pour on the bottom of a round oven-proof dish. Add a tablespoon of olive oil to the juice.
4. Preheat oven to 375F.
5. To make the stuffing, mix the rice with the tomato juice and flesh, adding a second tbsp of olive oil, herbs, garlic and Parmesan cheese. Season with salt and pepper. Fill the tomato shells with the stuffing, cover them with the tops, and place in an oven-proof dish.

6. Drizzle the tomatoes with a third tbsp of oil and put in a hot oven.
7. Bake for about 30 minutes until tomatoes are roasted. Serve warm.

Tomatoes Roasted with Herbs

If I had to name one thing that Polish and Italian cuisines have in common it would be our shared love for tomatoes. I have just come back from Poland where for a month I lived mostly on a raw tomato diet, thanks to which I probably got my yearly supply of lycopene. Polish tomatoes are amazing. They come in an endless variety of texture and taste. They are available everywhere in great abundance and at a very low price. On the local farmers' market, which I visited twice a week, I was buying many kilograms of tomatoes, which turned out to be barely enough to last until my next trip to the market. You could see mountains of them at dozens of stands in all shapes and colors. And each time I was dreaming to bring them here and introduce my American friends to the real tomatoes they have never tasted.

But these are just memories.

In America, I enjoy the sweet yellow or red cherry tomatoes and those medium dark brown, which are hard but very sweet. My recent addiction is a dish of roasted tomatoes with herbs that can accompany any meat, fish or goes well alone with freshly baked white bread. For this recipe, I use Roma tomatoes, but any other kind, which has a lot of flesh but not much juice, will work as well. On top of cut tomatoes I sprinkle Zatar--a mix of spices available in Middle Eastern groceries--a combination of thyme, sesame seeds, coriander, and sumac. I drizzle everything with olive oil and bake. This dish works well also with Herbes de Provance or any other herb mix you may like.

Tomatoes Roasted with Herbs

Ingredients:
1 lb ripe tomatoes,
1 tbsp Zatar (dried thyme, sesame seeds, coriander, and sumac) or any dried herbs you like, plus one tbsp of sesame seeds,
2 garlic cloves cut in half,
2 tbsp olive oil,
salt and pepper to taste.

Preparation:
1. Preheat oven to 400F.
1. Cut tomatoes in quarters and arrange on a 9-inch oven-proof dish.
2. Sprinkle with herbs, sesame seeds, salt, and pepper.

3. Drizzle with oil on top and bake for about 30 minutes until tomatoes become dark red and spices slightly brown.

Tomatoes Roasted with Bulgarian Feta--It Must be Bulgarian

Three weeks ago, when my niece was visiting us, our daily conversations were often going back to the memories of our childhoods. And, when we were talking about those old good days, the food we ate then was inevitably coming up as one of the best childhood memories. There is almost a two-decade age gap between us--she was raised on Nutella, which I did not know as a child--but surprisingly we loved and missed almost the same food. We recalled many dishes that we do not eat that often any more, because they require too much work or some specific ingredients which are hard to obtain outside Europe. We both agreed that Polish green and yellow beans, Polish small and crispy cucumbers, and our red sweet and fleshy tomatoes were probably among the best in the world.

One day, while talking about tomatoes and their variety available at the Polish farmers' markets, a dish, which is Bulgarian in origin, came to our minds. It required the very best tomatoes and the Bulgarian feta cheese. I once made a similar dish long ago. My niece used to have it often when her mother (my cousin) was making frequent business trips to Bulgaria and in a trunk of her car she was bringing canned Bulgarian cheese, which she later used to make this dish. We decided to make it ourselves again.

The next morning we rushed to my local Middle Eastern grocery store. They often sell very good tomatoes and three types of Feta cheese: French, Greek and most importantly Bulgarian, which the recipe is calling for. We bought all the necessary ingredients and in the evening in no time our dinner was ready. We sat on the deck and with a warm baguette and a glass of wine we indulged ourselves with an aromatic dish and talked even more about the old good times

Last week, I prepared the roasted tomatoes with feta again. Unfortunately, I did not have the original Bulgarian feta at home and the one I used, turned into small curds--a very undesirable effect. So if you get encouraged by my post to make this dish, I strongly advice you to get a real Bulgarian feta. And when you serve it together with white bread and red wine I guarantee you will enjoy it very much on a cool autumn evening.

Tomatoes Roasted with Bulgarian Feta
(Serves four as a side dish or two to three as a main dish)

Ingredients:
3-4 large beefsteak tomatoes, very ripe but not too soft. Good Roma tomatoes (about 6-8 of them) would do as well,
4-5 long hot peppers,
6-10 garlic cloves (depending on your taste),

1 lb (half a kilogram) of Bulgarian feta cheese,
1 branch of rosemary,
a small bunch of thyme,

2/3 cup extra virgin olive oil,
freshly ground pepper to taste.

Preparation:
1. Preheat oven to 400F.
2. Cut tomatoes in quarter and remove stems. Lay out about half of them on the bottom of a medium oven proof dish with a lid.
3. Cut the feta into thick slices and lay them on top of tomatoes. Cover it with the remaining tomatoes and whole hot peppers
4. Add garlic cloves and whole branches of herbs. Season with freshly ground peeper and pour the olive oil on top.

5. Cover the dish with a lid. Bake it covered all the time for about 40 to 50 minutes. Cool down, and remove the lid to let the steam out.

Serve with white baguette and, at the end, dip it in the oil.

Watercress and Roasted Tomatoes--The Elegant Salad

A friend of mine, who works in the music industry, often says that he has two big regrets in life--one, that he will never record The White Album and two, (he is a baldish type) that he will never have hair like Robert Plant. My biggest regret is that I will never write a romantic bestseller like Sense and Sensibility, and that I will never cater a dinner for John Kennedy Jr, in his Tribeca apartment, like a host of Zen Can Cook was lucky to do.

It is entirely understandable that he was granted such an opportunity, as his dishes, and especially the way they are presented, are culinary art. That is exactly what I was expecting to be treated to when I went to a three Michelin star restaurant and what I dream and try to achieve, cooking at home for my friends and guests.

The idea of this simple salad has been in my heart for almost two decades, ever since I read about it when I was living in London. All I remember is that it was created by one of the top Australian chefs for his Sydney restaurant. I am not even sure if I can remember correctly all the ingredients, but I did my best to make sure that my version remains in the same healthy yet elegant style.

All the ingredients are very simple and well known, and the presentation is key. It would be one of the dishes that I would put under a title "How to impress....", let's say, someone you meet for the first time. I made it a few times for my guests, since I often feel as hosting a culinary blog obliges me to do more than just tasty food, and also because I simply enjoy eating and creating attractive compositions on my plate.

What is nice about this salad is that everything can be prepared in advance (tomatoes and asparagus even a day earlier) and just assembled and served at the last moment.

Watercress and Roasted Tomatoes Salad
(for 6 people)

Ingredients:
1 bunch of watercress,
6 medium or 12 smaller (cocktail, but not cherry) tomatoes,
1 bunch of asparagus,
6 slices of Pancetta,
1/4 cup of shredded Parmesan cheese,
balsamic vinegar,
extra virgin olive oil,
salt and freshly ground pepper.

Preparation:
1. Preheat the oven to 350F.
2. Remove skin from the tomatoes. In order to do that, put the tomatoes first in the boiling water for about 20-30 seconds and right after that put them in the cold water. Take them out and remove the skin.
3. Place the tomatoes on a baking pan, salt them, and drizzle with oil.
4. Bake for 20-30 minutes, depending how big the tomatoes are, or until soft, and cool them down.
5. Cut 1/3 off asparagus stalks and blanch in the hot water for about 3 minutes, or cook on a frying pan in a little bit of oil and water for about 5 minutes, until they become softer, but still firm (al dente, if you will).
6. Cut the pancetta into smaller pieces and fry on a dry pan until gold and crispy.
7. Arrange the watercress, asparagus, and tomatoes on a plate. Sprinkle with a coarse sea salt and freshly ground pepper.

As I served this salad to my friends, I was wondering "Would John Jr. be smitten?"