Tomatoes alla Tiana

From Elisa Celli’s Italian Light Cooking, Prentice Hall, 1987.

I was planning to have a meal of vegetable side dishes. One was to be a warm potato salad with green olive dressing and the other was to be sautéed green beans with artichokes. I was looking for something bright and tasty that might accompany them. I settled for stuffed tomatoes.

I cut the tops off two large tomatoes and scooped out the insides, which were kept.

I now chopped half an eggplant into cubes and about an equal amount of button mushrooms finely. Two garlic cloves were chopped finely. All of these were fried in olive oil for about 5 minutes. Into the pan now went the scoopings from the tomatoes, a finely chopped onion, a handful of chopped parsley, a pinch of cayenne pepper and a pinch of dried thyme. These were sautéed for another 5 minutes and checked for seasoning. This mixture was packed into the tomatoes. A slice of cheddar cheese was placed over the top and the tomatoes went into a 180ªC oven for 15 minutes.

These turned out to be tastier than I thought they would. I always begin with a little doubt when stuffing vegetables but generally find the results worth the effort.

Taste: ✔✔✔

Ease of cooking: ✔✔✔✔