Roasted Tomatoes
Tantalizing Tomatoes
Here in Knoxville we're getting the first tomatoes of the season. They're grown in an area a few miles from here that enjoys micro-climate featuring an early spring and summer. This means tomatoes ripen about a month earlier than here.
When these tomatoes first started showing up (about 20 years ago) they were delicious -- as good as any locally-grown tomato. But sadly, their popularity led to a significant decline in quality until these days the only thing they really have going for them is they are genuinely vine-ripened. Unfortunately a tasteless vine-ripened tomato is still tasteless.
There's a trick for making such tomatoes savory -- slow-roasting. And, provided they aren't pure Styrofoam, the trick even works with winter tomatoes from Florida or California. The results have a rich savory tomato flavor and you can serve them as antipasti, make them into a simple sauce, or use a side dish. They're delicious either hot or at room temperature.
The following recipe combines roasted tomatoes, fresh herbs, and bacon. What's not to like?
Here in Knoxville we're getting the first tomatoes of the season. They're grown in an area a few miles from here that enjoys micro-climate featuring an early spring and summer. This means tomatoes ripen about a month earlier than here.
When these tomatoes first started showing up (about 20 years ago) they were delicious -- as good as any locally-grown tomato. But sadly, their popularity led to a significant decline in quality until these days the only thing they really have going for them is they are genuinely vine-ripened. Unfortunately a tasteless vine-ripened tomato is still tasteless.
There's a trick for making such tomatoes savory -- slow-roasting. And, provided they aren't pure Styrofoam, the trick even works with winter tomatoes from Florida or California. The results have a rich savory tomato flavor and you can serve them as antipasti, make them into a simple sauce, or use a side dish. They're delicious either hot or at room temperature.
Slow-roasted Tomatoes
6 ripe tomatoes, 5" diameter -- stemmed
olive oil
sherry vinegar
6 garlic cloves -- sliced thin
6 tbsp fresh thyme leaves
salt
Heat oven to 350F.
Remove hard stem for each tomato then cut in half horizontally (not top to bottom).
Arrange halves on an edged, foil-covered baking sheet. Drizzle generously with olive and lightly with vinegar. Sprinkle with garlic, thyme, and salt.
Cook for three hours. (The oil and juice in the bottom of the pan is great on salads.)
The following recipe combines roasted tomatoes, fresh herbs, and bacon. What's not to like?
Baked Club
(For each serving.)
1 boneless, skinless chicken breast
1 roasted tomato (both halves)
2 tbsp assorted fresh herbs (thyme, rosemary, parsley, oregano, …) -- minced
2 strips bacon
salt
Heat oven to 400F.
Arrange chicken breasts on foil-lined baking sheet. Sprinkle with herbs (reserving some for garnish) and salt and place bacon on top. Bake for 20 minutes or until bacon is done.
Serve on tomato halves and sprinkle with remaining herbs.
Note: As you can see there's almost no prep in this dish (assuming you've already roasted the tomatoes) making it a good, but fancy, weeknight meal.
7 Comments:
You call that SLOW roasted? I just roasted a bunch of tomatoes for 8 hours (at 180º)...subject of a future post. Of course, by that time all you can do with them is slip the skins off and make sauce, because they're falling apart...these look great though, in all seriousness...
Stephen,
I bow to your patience.[g]
It doesn't take patience...you put them in the oven and go on with your life...later you take them out. No muss, no fuss, no waiting. What it takes is a reasonable amount of memory power, or maybe a loud alarm clock: last night I was curled up in bed nearly asleep when I suddenly remembered I had an ovenful of tomatoes that weren't going to get any better with another 8 hrs in there!
Stephen,
Then I bow to your superior memory.
I like to take the tastiest in season tomatoes and slice them. I line a baking sheet with non-stick foil and arrange the slices on it. I take a bunch of parsley, about 8 cloves of garlic, salt and a little olive oil...process it to make a pesto. I cover the tomatoes with the pesto. Then, I cover the tomato/pesto with bread crumbs. Fresh crumbs are the best but in a pinch I have used Italian bread crumbs. Drizzle the whole thing with olive oil and bake at 350 until the crumbs are toasted and the tomatoes are soft. Serve over pasta.
Yum!
I like to put my slow roasted tomatoes in a quiche with roasted garlic and peppers.
I'll usually use a zippy aged cheddar like bandaged wrapped Fiscalini or Dubliner.
DEE-Lish-Us
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