=Broiled Tomatoes.=--Cut the tomatoes in two, and leave the skins on.
Place in a well-buttered frying pan, with the skin side down, dust with
salt and pepper, and broil, without turning, over a moderate fire for
ten minutes, or till tender. Lay them on a hot dish, and spread each
piece over with melted butter. Or the tomatoes may be cut in thick
slices, covered with olive oil, and then broiled, turning frequently.
=Scalloped Tomatoes.=--Season with salt and pepper some ripe tomatoes,
that have been skinned and sliced. Put a layer of fine bread-crumbs in
the bottom of a buttered pudding dish, then put a layer of the sliced
tomatoes; sprinkle over them a little sugar and a few drops of onion
juice, then a layer of bread-crumbs, and continue until the dish is
full, having the last layer of bread-crumbs; put small pieces of butter
here and there on the top, and bake in a hot oven for twenty minutes.
Serve hot in the same dish.
=Tomato Sandwiches.=--(1) Cut slices of thin bread and butter, and
spread them with tomato pulp, seasoning with a little mustard, pepper,
and salt, put another slice of bread and butter on the top, press the
sandwich together, remove the crust, cut into neat fingers, and serve
on a d’oyley, decorated with parsley.
(2) Slices of skinned ripe tomatoes, seasoned with a little vinegar,
salt, and pepper, introduced instead of tomato pulp, make very good
sandwiches.
=Tomato Fritters.=--(1) Cut peeled tomatoes into slices, season with
pepper and salt. For the batter, beat up one egg, add a cupful of milk,
a pinch of salt, one tablespoonful of olive oil, then sift in half a
cupful of flour. Mix well till smooth and glossy. Allow to stand in a
cool place for one hour; then add one teaspoonful of baking powder. Dip
the slices of tomato into the batter, and place them gently in a frying
basket, and fry in smoking-hot fat to a golden colour. Drain on white
paper, dish, and garnish with fried parsley. Serve hot.
(2) Peel some fresh tomatoes--if they are very large, one for each
person will be sufficient. Divide each tomato into thirds or quarters,
and fry them slowly in butter, turning them as they brown. When nearly
done, dust with salt and pepper, and sift a little flour over them--a
trifle more than a heaped tablespoonful to four tomatoes. Finally, add
a cupful of cream or rich milk, and simmer until the gravy thickens.
Serve on slices of toasted bread.
=Baked Tomatoes stuffed with Macaroni.=--This dish is prepared from
left-over macaroni, which has been baked with cheese in a white sauce.
Remove the pulp from five large smooth tomatoes, chop finely, and mix
with one cupful of macaroni. Season well with salt and pepper. Fill the
tomato cases, cover with buttered bread-crumbs and grated cheese, and
bake until browned.
=Tomato Omelette.=--One cupful of bread-crumbs, with milk enough to
barely cover; let them stand for half an hour. Brown a small onion and
two cloves of garlic; when done, add half a pint of canned tomatoes,
cook until smooth, seasoning with salt, pepper, and cayenne. Put a
good-sized lump of butter in a large frying pan when hot, pour in five
or six eggs, well beaten, and the soaked bread-crumbs, well beaten
together and seasoned with pepper and salt. Cook until set, sprinkle
with grated cheese, lay the tomato purée on the omelette, fold, and put
in a quick oven for a minute. Serve at once.
=Baked Stuffed Tomatoes.=--Remove the insides from six tomatoes, mince,
and add some chopped parsley, half a pint of grated nuts, two ounces of
bread-crumbs, pepper and salt to taste, and one egg. Fill the tomatoes
with this mixture, and bake for half an hour, first placing a small
piece of butter on each tomato.
=Tomatoes à la Noisette= (_Mrs. B. C. Stephenson’s Recipe_).--Scald
six ripe tomatoes in boiling water, skin them, and bake them in a
buttered sauté pan; then pass them through a wire sieve; chop two
shallots up finely, and fry them in an ounce of butter; add two ounces
of peeled and chopped walnuts, a dessertspoonful of chopped parsley, an
ounce of bread-crumbs, and an ounce of grated cheese, and the tomato
purée. Stir this over a quick fire, season with salt, pepper, and
cayenne, beat two eggs well into the mixture, and keep stirring until
set. Spread this on a round of hot buttered toast, cover with grated
cheese, and serve hot.
=Tomato Sauce.= _See_ Sauces.
=Tomato Soup.= _See_ Soups.
=Tomato Salads.= _See_ Salads.
=Tomatoes au Gratin.=--Blanch the tomatoes, skin them, and place in a
well-buttered fireproof dish. Mix one cupful of tomato sauce with one
dessertspoonful of curry powder or paste and one heaped tablespoonful
of red currant jelly. Boil it up for eight minutes, season the
tomatoes, and pour the prepared sauce over them. Sprinkle with grated
cheese and fine bread-crumbs and a little melted butter, and bake in a
hot oven for twenty minutes. Serve in a ring of plain boiled rice.
=Panned Tomatoes.=--To pan tomatoes, cut the tomatoes into halves,
place them in a baking pan, skin side down, sprinkle lightly with
salt and pepper, and put in the centre of each a tiny bit of butter.
Bake slowly until soft. Take up, and add to the liquor in the pan one
pint of milk. Moisten two level tablespoonfuls of flour with a little
cold milk, add it to the pan, and stir constantly until boiling; add
a teaspoonful of salt and a dash of pepper, and pour it over the
tomatoes. Garnish with squares of toast, and serve.
=Tomato Rarebit.=--Put two tablespoonfuls of butter into the chafing
dish, and, when melted, add two tablespoonfuls of flour, and stir
until well blended; then pour on gradually, while stirring constantly,
three-fourths of a cupful of cream, and as soon as the mixture begins
to thicken, add three-fourths of a cupful of stewed and strained
tomatoes, mixed with one-eighth of a teaspoonful of soda; then add
two cupfuls of soft mild cheese, cut in small pieces, and two eggs,
slightly beaten. Season to taste.
=Tomato Aspic Salad.=--To one pint of strained tomatoes add one scant
teaspoonful of salt, a few grains of cayenne pepper, half a teaspoonful
of onion juice, and half an ounce of gelatine. Let it stand for half an
hour, then bring to the boiling point; put into small moulds to harden.
Serve on lettuce leaves with a spoonful of mayonnaise. This will serve
six persons.
=Creole Tomato Eggs.=--Cook a can of tomatoes with one green pepper
and a little salt until the tomatoes are reduced by half; then pour
the tomatoes on to five rounds of buttered toast, and place on each
of these one poached egg, and keep hot. Meanwhile melt a heaped
tablespoonful of butter in a saucepan over the fire, and allow it to
get brown; then add one tablespoonful of either lemon juice or vinegar.
Let it just come to the boil, and pour it over the eggs, seasoning them
with salt and pepper.
=Tomato Relish.=--To one peck of tomatoes, rather finely chopped,
four cupfuls of chopped celery, eight onions, chopped rather finely,
eight small peppers, cut into thin slices, two pounds of brown sugar,
one cupful of salt, two ounces of white mustard seed, two quarts
of vinegar, and one tablespoonful of grated horse-radish. Cook
all together, and drain some of the juice from the tomatoes. Mix
thoroughly, and boil for a quarter of an hour; put in glass jars, and
keep in a cool dark place.
TURNIP (_Brassica rapa. Cruciferæ_).
For the small garden, this may be looked upon as one of the minor
vegetables, for which there is no great demand. The smaller, quickly
growing sorts are the varieties to select, as they occupy the ground
for a shorter time, and are more tender and less coarse in flavour than
the grosser kinds.
A sowing may be made in April of such turnip as Early Six Weeks in a
drill alongside a row of peas or broad beans. The seed must be thinly
sown, and black cotton must be stretched above to provide against the
attentions of the chaffinch. As soon as the plants are in the second
leaf they must be singled, and later thinned to four inches in the row.
The autumn sowing of main-crop turnips may be made about mid-July;
also a quick-growing kind may be sown again. The gardener must be
prepared to repeat this sowing if the turnip fly play havoc with his
crop during dry weather, and on this account it is not well to thin
too drastically until the plants have really started to grow. A second
sowing about the 12th of August will give a good chance of partially
grown plants to stand through the winter, and give in early spring a
few dishes of that delicious green, turnip tops.