Harper's cook book encyclopædia

Tomatoes, Broiled. — Take large round tomatoes, wipe them carefully, and put them on the gridiron over coals, placing the stem side down. When they are brown, turn over and let them cook until done through. Another way : — Cut solid tomatoes in half without removing the skin. Season with salt and pepper, and broil for a few minutes with the skin side to the fire. Serve with mayonnaise or bearnaise sauce heated. Tomatoes, Curried. — Grate an apple and chop an onionn — of equal size — and fry them until tender ; add a teaspoonful of good curry powder mixed with a little gravy or milk; simmer for a few minutes, and spread the Tomatoes, Devilled VEGETABLES Tomato Purge tomatoes — first cut and fried, or baked — with the mixture. Serve with boiled rice. Tomatoes, Devilled. — Peel and cut large, firm tomatoes crosswise into thick slices and broil. Lay them on a hot dish and pour over them a sauce made of three table-spoonfuls of oil and the same of vinegar, yolks of three raw eggs, beaten light, a teaspoonful of sugar and half as much, each, of mustard and salt, with a pinch of cayenne. Put sugar, pepper, salt, and mustard into the vinegar and beat to a boil. Beat the oil, drop by drop, into the whipped yolks, and when you have a rich, creamy mixture, stir the boiling vinegar into it gradually. Set in a vessel of hot water and stir until scalding hot. Tomatoes a la Francaise, Stuffed. — Select six good-sized, firm tomatoes, slice the top smoothly from each, and remove the seeds without breaking the walls of the tomato. Make a force-meat of a cupful of very fine bread-crumbs, seasoned with a halfteaspoonful of sweet herbs — parsley, marjoram, and thyme, minced fine — pepper and salt, and a teaspoonful of grated lemon-peel. Moisten this stuffing with a heaping teaspoonful of butter, melted, and stir in a beaten egg. Fill the tomatoes with the mixture, replace the tops, and tie on with a piece of thread. Mix another egg with a table-spoonful of water; roll the tomatoes first in this and then in fine bread-crumbs ; arrange carefully in a pan, and bake fifteen minutes in a good oven. Remove the threads before sending to table. Tomatoes au Gratin. — Dissolve I oz. of fresh butter in a stewpan, and mix Yz oz. of flour smoothly with it. Stir it with a wooden spoon over a gentle fire for two minutes, then add very gradually three-quarters of a pint of good stock. Let it boil gently till it is reduced to rather less than half a pint. Put in with it a tablespoonful of chopped onion, three table-spoonfuls of finely shred parsley, and a little pepper and salt, and boil it quickly for ten minutes. Take eight or ten large, ripe tomatoes. Slice off the stalks and the part that adheres to them, and make a round hole in the top the size of a quarter of a dollar. Scoop out the seeds, and fill their place with the prepared sauce. Set them carefully in a baking-tin, the stalk end uppermost, with 2 ozs. of butter, and sprinkle bread-crumbs lightly over them. Put them in a brisk oven, and bake them for ten minutes. Serve very hot. Time to make the stuffing, about one hour. Tomatoes a la Mode. — Skin twelve large tomatoes ; cut them up ; put them into a saucepan, adding a little butter, pepper, and salt. When sufficiently done, beat well four eggs, and stir in — stirring one way for two minutes, or until they seem to be well done.