Winter Roasted Tomatoes
from Alice Waters The Art of Simple Food
Winter Roasted Tomatoes from Alice Waters’ The Art of Simple Food
It’s the third week of May, but where I live in the PNW, for some reason we still haven’t had a night over 50 degrees this month, so my tomatoes still sit under grow lights in the steam pipe distribution trunk. Point being, homegrown tomatoes are a ways away still, and it’s a rainy day here, so I thought I’d try a recipe from Alice Waters The Art of Simple Food called “Winter Roasted Tomatoes.” Ok, it’s less a recipe than a treatment, like one of those things The New York Times calls a “Recipe without a Recipe.”
This doesn’t really need to be made in Winter. Really any day when you can’t get in-season, or won’t get out-of-season tomatoes. But I wouldn’t make them on a warm day as your oven will be on for 4-5 hours, albeit fairly low.
I just saw a Target ad that tried to pitch that the security cameras in the self-checkout line are a cool fun way to check your hair and your outfit and your makeup, that we should embrace the surveillance because as long as we can see ourselves on camera it’s fun, right? We all of us clearly love filming ourselves, so Target filming us in the self-checkout is the same, right? Had folks singing and dancing and checking themselves out in the cameras put to Michelle Branch’s “Everywhere” but with the lyrics changed to be about how much fun it is to see ourselves in the security footage. Target: Selfies Welcome. I’m just saying.
It takes some time to cook this, so let’s go.
Winter Roasted Tomatoes
Set oven to 275 degrees.
Ingredients:
Olive oil
1 yellow onion
3-5 cloves garlic
Big can whole tomatoes (28 oz)
Fresh herbs, such as thyme, oregano, basil, rosemary, marjoram
Directions:
Pour a few glugs of olive oil into the bottom of a wide, shallow earthenware dish, casserole, etc., and spread it around so you have a nice coating. (I don’t have a large shallow earthenware dish, but my shallow enameled cast iron worked great. Don’t use non-enameled cast iron, though.) Dice up an onion and layer it on top of the olive oil. Slice up 3-5 garlic cloves, and scatter on the onions. Sprinkle with fresh herbs such as marjoram, oregano, basil, rosemary. I used oregano and rosemary, and kept the rosemary sprigs whole for ease of retrieval. Season with salt.
Gather the ingredients
Slice 3-5 cloves garlic
Chop one onion
Add a couple good glugs of olive oil to your pot or pan
Add your onion and garlic
Sprinkle with fresh herbs
Strain a large can of whole peeled tomatoes. Save the tomato juice for another use, or drink. Salut!
Place the whole tomatoes on top of the diced onions, garlic, and herbs. Season again with more salt, pepper, and a pinch of sugar. You’re just layering everything.
Strain your tomatoes
Place tomatoes on top of olive oil, onion, garlic, and herbs
Season with salt, pepper, pinch of sugar, and drizzle more olive oil
Place uncovered in oven and bake at 275 for 4-5 hours. (I did 4:15.) No stirring or monitoring necessary. Just walk away, clean your house, plant your tomatoes, mow the lawn, do the laundry, watch Once Upon a Time in America, do you.
When you remove from the oven, fish out large sprigs of herbs if you used them. Smash the tomatoes down, and stir everything into the oil, onions, and garlic. Taste and adjust for seasoning.
Waters says to serve as a sauce with warm noodles, polenta, atop fish, or simply with toasted bread.
Holy cow, this is good. The onions caramelize, the tomatoes are rich and jammy, the oil infuses with all herbs, which somehow manage not to burn. Absolutely incredible. Makes about enough to sauce two dinner portions of pasta. I can also see adding chopped olives to do the spooning over bread option. Can almost certainly be made ahead of time for that. So easy, so flipping good.
Waters, Alice. The Art of Simple Food. New York, Clarkson Potter, 2007.