Anne Morgan Eight big ripe tomatoes, hollowed out and filled with spiced rice, make Delia Smith’s stuffed tomatoes, the Turkish ones from her Vegetarian Collection. The rice is first simmered with onion and garlic, a little cinnamon and a scattering of pine nuts and currants, then packed into the tomatoes under their own lids and baked for half an hour. It’s a light lunch for 4 with salad, or a starter for 8.
There’s no meat in them at all, which is why the recipe sits in her 2002 vegetarian book. She says they’re lovely hot or cold, so to my mind they suit a picnic or a summer buffet as well.
The same spices go into her stuffed peppers with lamb, also Turkish, in her Complete Cookery Course. Those make a main course, while these tomatoes are lighter.
Delia Smith’s Turkish Stuffed Tomatoes
Course: StarterCuisine: TurkishDifficulty: Easy4
servings20
minutes50
minutes265
kcalSoft, juicy tomato shells around fragrant rice, with sweet currants, toasted pine nuts and a warm hint of cinnamon.
Ingredients
- For the tomatoes:
8 really large ripe tomatoes
150ml (5fl oz) carnaroli rice, measured in a jug
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 dessertspoon olive oil, plus extra for drizzling
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon pine nuts
1 tablespoon currants
275ml (10fl oz) hot vegetable stock
1 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme
2 teaspoons golden caster sugar
salt and freshly milled black pepper
Directions
- Rice: Soften the onion in the oil in a small frying pan that has a tight-fitting lid. Add the garlic, tip in the rice, then the cinnamon, pine nuts and currants, and stir until the grains are coated.
- Simmer: Season, pour in the hot stock, stir just once, then cover and cook gently for 15 to 20 minutes, until the stock has gone and the rice is tender. Take it off the heat, add the thyme and fluff it up with a skewer.
- Oven: Heat it to 180°C, fan 160°C, gas mark 4.
- Hollow: Slice a thin lid off the stalk end of each tomato and scoop out the core and seeds, keeping as much of the flesh as you can.
- Fill: Put a pinch of the sugar into each tomato, pack it with the rice and put its lid back on.
- Bake: Stand them in a roasting tin of about 28 x 20cm with a little water in the bottom, drizzle a few drops of oil over each and bake for 25 to 30 minutes.
Notes
- Beef tomatoes are the easiest to find in the size this needs, which is my own tip. Smaller ones split and leave no room for the rice.
- Keep the scooped-out insides for a soup or a quick tomato sauce rather than throwing them away.
FAQs
What rice should I use?
She uses carnaroli, an Italian risotto rice, in the 2002 version, and her older Complete Cookery Course simply asks for Italian rice. Arborio, my own swap, works the same way and holds its shape inside the tomato.
Why add sugar to the tomatoes?
To my mind a pinch in each one softens the tomato’s sharpness as it bakes. It helps most with supermarket tomatoes, which her Complete Cookery Course says are often picked before they’re fully ripe and turn pithy and woolly inside.
How has the recipe changed?
Very little. The Complete Cookery Course version cooks the rice in stock or water, slices the lid off the round end rather than the stalk end, and notes that pine nuts could be bought in Greek or health food shops.
The 2002 version settles on vegetable stock and gives the sugar a measure, 2 teaspoons in all.
Should I skin the tomatoes?
No, leave the skins on. They hold the tomatoes together in the oven, which matters once the insides have gone, and that’s my own reasoning rather than hers.
Her Complete Cookery Course does give a way to skin tomatoes for other dishes, 5 minutes in boiling water and then cold water, and the skins slip off easily.
Can I make them ahead?
Yes, and she rates them cold as well as hot. I’d bake them in the morning, cool them, then keep them covered in the fridge and take them out half an hour before serving, which is my own timing.
What can I serve with them?
A green salad for lunch, as she suggests. As a starter, 1 tomato each is plenty, which is how her 8 tomatoes stretch to 8 people.
Some good bread for the juices in the tin is my own addition.
