Tomato Recipes

I'm going to skip tomato sauce recipes for this post and concentrate on some different recipes from the 19th Century. I found one recipe that said, cut and/or slice sprinkle with salt and pepper and eat as fast as you can. LOL I loved that. Of course, I love fresh tomatoes and a little salt and pepper is perfect imho.


FROZEN TOMATO SALAD
Chop fine one can of tomatoes, then run through a course sieve. Season to taste with a few drops of onion juice, a very little sugar, a drop of clove extract, a little tarragon vinegar and salt and pepper to taste. Turn into a freeze and freeze as usual. Fill a melon mold with frozen mixture, pack in ice and salt and let stand for two hours to ripen. Serve on a bed of lettuce leaves with a garnish of mayonnaise.
Source: Table Talk ©1899

FRIED TOMATOES
Peel and cut a solid tomato into slices half an inch thick, remove the seeds and roll them in crumbs. Put in a short-handled spider a little butter, and fry in it two slices of onion. Remove the onion and lay in the sliced tomatoes. Sprinkle them with salt and pepper and chopped parsley. Cover the slices with a buttered paper, and keep the spider in a hot oven from ten to fifteen minutes.
BROILED TOMATOES.
The tomato should first be peeled and then cut into slices three-quarters of an inch thick; small tomatoes are cut into halves. Put some olive oil into a soup plate and put each piece of tomato into the the oil, covering all the parts, before laying the pieces upon a fine wire broiler and cooking over a clear fire. Arrange on a hot platter and season with salt and pepper and chopped parsley. Another method is to peel and cut the tomatoes into thick slices and broil; have ready some grated cheese. and sprinkle it over the tomatoes while they are broiling, covering both sides; serve on a hot dish as soon as they are taken from the fire, seasoning well with salt and pepper. Still another mode is to leave the skins on; cut the tomato into halves; place them on a coarse broiler with the skins down; sprinkle them with salt and pepper, and broil without turning, over a fire not too strong, until the pulp is tender; when cooked, cover them with melted butter or a sauce if preferred.
Source: Good Housekeeping ©1897

CREAM OF TOMATO SOUP.
Recipe.
Put one pint of milk to heat in a double boiler. Put one tablespoonful of butter in a saucepan and when bubbling add one tablespoonful of flour. Stir this into the hot milk. While this thin white sauce is cooking put a pint, or half a can of tomatoes into the saucepan. Add one teaspoonful of salt and a speck of pepper and when the tomatoes are thoroughly hot and soft, strain them into the milk. Serve at once.
Cream of Tomato Soup.
For the cream of tomato soup, which will be the next thing I will make, I will prepare the flour and butter in the same manner as for a white sauce, melt the butter and add the flour. Then I will turn this mixture into the hot milk and cook it over hot water. I then heat the tomatoes, add the salt and pepper and strain the two together into a dish to serve.
There are just two points in this cream of tomato soup that must be observed in order to have a smooth soup. One point is, do not over cook the tomatoes. The acid of the tomato is brought out and made stronger by cooking, and if the acid is too strong it will curdle the milk. You are at a little disadvantage sometimes, when using canned tomatoes, for you cannot tell how long the manufacturer has cooked them; but if you are using tomatoes that you have canned yourself you have no trouble. As a rule, however, I find no trouble with canned tomatoes that I get from the grocery. The other precaution to observe is not to add the milk to the tomatoes until ready to serve, and then do not heat the mixture after the milk and tomatoes are put together.. Observing, these
two rules I think you will have no trouble with the soup curdling. If It should curdle a little you may very often get it smooth again by using the Dover beater, which will restore its smoothness somewhat. This will also restore the smoothness to a boiled custard that is cooked a little too long. If you turn it into a cold bowl and beat it with a Dover beater your mixture will be almost as smooth as though it had not curdled.
Question—When do you strain your tomatoes?
Mrs. Jamison—I strain them after they are cooked because it is convenient. The recipe calls for a pint of strained tomatoes. I generally take a little more than the measure and strain them after they are cooked instead of before.
Just a word here in connection with these canned vegetables. Always turn them out of the tin can as soon as it is opened, whether you are going to use the entire can or not, because while there is no poison in the can as long as it is kept from the air, as soon as the air mixes with the acid of the fruit the acid begins to work on the tin and the poison is developed in that way. As long as they are air tight there is no danger of poison, nor is there if you observe the precaution of emptying the can as soon as it is opened.
Source: Bulletin ©1896

Daily use of the Tomato.—Cut up with salt, vinegar, and pepper, as you lo cucumbers, and eat away as fast as you can.
How to stew them.—Take your tomato from the vine ripe, slice up, put n the pot over the fire, without water; stew them slow, ana when done put it a small lump of butter, and eat as you do apple sauce. If you choose, a ittle crumb of bread or pnlverised crackers may be added. What you have eft, put away in a jar for winter.
Tomato Omelet.—When stewed, beat up a half dozen new-laid eggs, the yolk and white separated; when each are well beaten, mix them with the ;omato—put them in a pan and beat them up; you have a fine omelet.
To keep them the year round.—Take them full ripe, and scald in hot water, to facilitate the operation of taking off the skin ; when skinned, boil well in a little sugar and salt, but no water, and then spread in cakes about an eighth of an inch thick, in the sun. They will dry enough in three or four days to pack away in bags, which should be hun" in a dry room.
To pickle Tomatoes.—Pick them when they are ripe. Put them in layers in a jar, with garlic, mustard seed, horseradish, spices, &C., as you like, filling up the jar; occasionally putting a little fine salt, proportionally to the quantity laid down, and which is intended to preserve the tomato. When type jar is full, pour on the tomatoes cold cider vinegar (it must be pure,) till all is covered, and then cork up tight and set away for winter.
To make Tomato Preserves, —Take them while quite small and green— put them in cold clarified syrup, with an orange cut in slices to every two pounds of tomatoes. Simmer them over a slow fire for two or three'hours. There should be equal weights of sugar and tomatoes. If very superior preserves are wanted,allow two fresh lemons to three pounds of tomatoes—pare thin the rind of the lemons, so as to get none of the white part; squeeze out the juice, mix the parings, juice, and cold water sufficient to cover the tomatoes, and put in a few peach leaves and powdered ginger tied up in bags. Boil the whole gently, for three fourths of an hour, take up the tomatoes, strain the liquor, and put with it a pound and a half of white sugar for each pound of tomatoes. Put in the tomatoes and boil them gently till the syrup appears to have entered them. In the course of a week, turn the syrup from them, heat it scalding hot, and turn it on to the tomatoes. Prepared in this way, they resemble West India sweetmeats.
N. B.—Dr. Bennett, a medical professor in cie of our colleges, considers the tomato an invaluable article of diet. He ascribes to it high medical properties, and declares it to be one of the most powerful deohstruents; and' that when used as an article of diet, it is a sovereign remedy for dyspepsia er indigestion, and all those affections of ..w liver and other organs of the stomach.— Western Farmer.
Source: The Farmer's Almanack ©1841