The last time I baked a batch of tomatoes was last August, in the sun, on a flat rooftop in Gela in south-east Sicily. I had laid out several dozen tomato halves on a board, and balanced the board between two chairs next to the bright blue water tank, under the searing Sicilian sun. It clearly wasn’t the rooftop of tomatoes that my partner Vincenzo’s grandmother used to lay out – that everyone used to lay out – nor the scenario I had imagined, but then nothing in Sicily turned out to be as I imagined. One board was a start though. To begin with I checked attentively, watching the flesh sink and sides shrivel, and seeds become more and more obvious, like white buttons on a red double-breasted jacket. The next day, standing in the kitchen watching a summer storm batter against the window, I suddenly remembered. Shit. I ran up three flights of stairs to find most of my tomatoes floating in a rooftop puddle
I was remembering this as I cut tomatoes in half earlier this week. I am still not sure why I didn’t pick them out of the puddle and put them back on the board, because the rain stopped almost as suddenly as it had started. I didn’t even rescue those that could have been rescued. Perhaps because it all felt a bit feeble. This year we will be in Sicily earlier, July, which is when you should dry tomatoes; it’s less humid with less risk of rain. Still, I am going to try again. That means this column is going to be a Kitchen in Gela for a month or so. Which also means one reader’s request for sfincione, the fat Sicilian pizza, will be answered.
Feelings about food are always relative. Having grown up in England in the 1970s and 80s, I know all about “salad tomatoes”, about cliches of cardboard and cotton. But I also remember the best tomatoes in the world, the ones picked from the plants in the grow bag up against the sunny fence at the end of the garden. A close second were the huge beefy tomatoes my mum brought home from the Athenian grocer in Bayswater, which we ate skinned, thinly sliced and topped with my dad’s famous dressing. Looking back, those tomatoes were possibly Dutch. Vincenzo, on the other hand, grew up spending summers on his grandparents’ rented farmland near Gela, picking, eating and throwing tomatoes, hiding in the huge cauldron which later held litres and litres of tomato sauce, and chasing around the tables of wrinkled tomatoes on the roof. Coming from England to Rome, I appreciate, possibly idealise, the abundance of tomatoes that smell like tomatoes. On the other hand, coming up from Sicily to Rome means Vincenzo is less easily impressed. It is all relative.
As with simmering sauce until it reduces, roasting intensifies the flavour of tomatoes. For even more flavour, push a sliver of garlic and little piece of anchovy deep inside the tomato half. The garlic bakes into soft sweetness, and the anchovy disintegrates, its fishiness giving way to a rich savouriness. You can roast the tomatoes as they are, or add a layer of breadcrumbs, ideally the crumbs – la mollica – from the middle of a loaf that is a day or two old, neither too fresh, nor too dry. As always, the better the bread, the better the crumbs – a country style loaf or sourdough works well. As the tomatoes bake and soften along with the garlic and anchovy within, the bread becomes creamy underneath and crisp on top, a sort of deconstructed, inverted tomatoes on toast, another thing that drags me happily back to my childhood.
Exactly how long you cook your tray of tomatoes depends on both the tomatoes (and how much water they contain) and what you want to serve them with. If they are for beside fish, or roast chicken, then they need to be quite soft and fleshy, so they create something like a sauce. If you are serving them as part of an antipasti with olives, salami and cheese, or to be mixed with little gem lettuce – which is a most tasty and satisfying salad – you can cook them longer, until they are drier and the crumbs really crisp.
Baked tomatoes, anchovies, garlic and breadcrumbs
Hardly a recipe, but very good to eat, especially with baked or grilled fish, or roast chicken. Also as part of an antipasti.
Serves 4
700g tomatoes, ideally small plum sized-ones
A plump garlic clove
8 anchovy fillets
100g soft breadcrumbs from day old bread
Extra virgin olive oil
Salt
1 Set the oven to 180C/350F/gas mark 4. Rub a baking tray with olive oil, then half the tomatoes and sit them cut side up in the tin – they should be quite snug.
2 Peel and slice the garlic very thinly, and cut the anchovy fillets in four. Push a sliver of garlic, and piece of anchovy deep into the fleshy pulp of each half. Scatter the breadcrumbs over the tomatoes. Sprinkle with salt, and zigzag generously with olive oil.
3 Bake the tomatoes for 20–30 minutes or until the tomatoes are very soft and bubbling at the edges and the breadcrumbs are golden and crisp on top. You need to keep an eye on them.
• Rachel Roddy is a food blogger based in Rome and the author of Five Quarters: Recipes and Notes from a Kitchen in Rome (Saltyard, 2015) and winner of the 2015 André Simon food book award
