Stuffed tomatoes
Every year the last Wednesday of august the streets of Buñol in Valencia are awash with red. La Tomatina festival is the world’s largest street food fight using the quintessential vegetable tomato. Our food journey today is with this berry of the nightshade family. Tomatoes are believed to have originated in central and south America, and come to Europe through the Spaniards post the Spanish colonization of Latin America. As part of the nightshade family tomatoes were for long believed to be poisonous and viewed skeptically by the colonizing Spaniards. In fact it is the leaves of the plant that are to be aware of and not the berry that is used for cooking. Today tomato is an essential component of many cuisines globally, adding colour acidity tanginess as required to the dish being prepared.
Nutritionally speaking tomatoes are often referred to as a super food being a rich source of Vitamins C and A, as also folic acid. Various anti-oxidants and nutrients like lutein, choline, lycopene and alpha lipoic acid are also rich in this berry. An average 100 odd gram tomato provides about 20 calories some carbohydrates and a gram of fiber. The anti-oxidants help in fighting formation of carcinogenic free radicals. Potassium and vitamin C from tomatoes can play an important role in cardiovascular health as potassium tends to work in maintain blood pressure through its vaso-dilatory effects. The Vitamin A helps improve in the eye health of individuals, while the fiber relieves constipation. Vitamin C is essential for skin health and lack leads to scurvy, thus making tomato a good source of food to maintain skin health. Folic acid is critical in maintaining homocysteine levels of body. This homocysteine in turns regulates the formation of the feel good hormones of the body like serotonin dopamine and norephinephrine. Thus a tomato rich diet could lead to greater secretion of the happy hormones and help combat depression.
But leaving behind the science of tomatoes it’s a delicious addition to the plate and a lovely tickle to the palate, so let’s roll our arms and get cracking in my mom’s pantry to gather today’s ingredients for cooking stuffed tomatoes.
To make a serving for people we will need :
- Small red tomatoes – 10
- Groundnuts-1 ½ handful
- Garlic -15 cloves
- Dried coconut powder – 2 tsp
- Dried red chillies – 8 to 10
- Cinnamon – 1 stick
- Cloves – 2 to 3
- Cardamom – 3 to 4
- Turmeric powder – ¼ tsp
- Sugar- 2 pinches or to taste
- Salt to taste
- Cooking Oil – 4 to 5 tea spoons
As with any dish we will first have to make a bit of preparation before the actual cook. This begins with fist chopping of the garlic cloves and setting aside. Then on a dry pan we roast the groundnut, garlic, dried coconut powder, dried red chillies, cardamom, cloves and cinnamon individually. Now this is all ground together, with dash of salt. Then the tomatoes are carefully scooped up so as to be able to be stuffed. The pulp that is scooped up is set aside. The tomatoes chosen should thus be fleshy rather than being ripe and juicy so that the scooping is easy and doesn’t leave it formless. The roasted and ground masala set aside is now stuffed into the tomato as a stuffing. The pulp from the tomatoes is ground using a mixer and set aside.
Now take an open pan and heat oil in it and place the stuffed tomatoes in it and fry with occasional stirrings till it softens. Remove from the oil and set aside. Now add the masala leftover from the stuffing onto the oil in the pan and add the ground tomato pulp. Add turmeric and sugar to taste and stir till the masala gets cooked into an even thick paste. Add the stuffed tomatoes on to this paste and mix. Now add some water and stir and mix till an even consistency is achieved. Let this cook on a slow fire for about 10 minutes leading to thick gravy. Transfer to a serving bowl and serve hot with rotis.
Tomatoes are primarily the supporting actors in our culinary productions never the star but always needed to complete the production. So in this piece where it is the star a dash more of my mom’s secret ingredients of love and smile is definitely on to get that standing ovation. So go ahead and smile and love as you cook. Bon appétit.
