Tomates Farcies

Once the tomatoes start to appear at the market, this is the dish I crave most!

Every year when summer rolls around, and tomatoes are at their peak, I start to crave Tomates Farcies, or “Stuffed Tomatoes”. This is one of my favorite French recipes, which is typically served, at lunch, all summer long!

They make for a great dish to feed a crowd and serving them with rice is a must for soaking up all the delicious sauce!

This is a dish my sister-in-law made for me the first summer I traveled to France to meet my husband’s family. It was a scorcher of a summer, and it seemed strange to serve these hot tomatoes in 90-degree weather?! Until I tasted them. I was hooked ever since!

I then learned how to make them from my mother-in-law. When we started having kids, we traveled back to France each summer, renting a house by the beach in Piriac-sur-Mer in the Loire-Atlantic region. My French family speaks not a word of English, so practicing my French in the kitchen, was a low-stakes way to “bond with them” or at least have fun trying! Learning a foreign language is a lifelong project that involves all kinds of awkward situations like this!

Some days we could have 17 people to feed for lunch (family and childhood friends that would descend on us for a few days. Every bed, sofa and sometimes backyard tent (!) was taken up in this house!) and this recipe was the easiest, most economical way to feed everyone!

Lunch before the beach was never just a P & J and a bunch of grapes! It involved a starter (pictured here) main plate, cheese and salad, dessert, and coffee. And NO the coffee couldn’t be served with the dessert to “speed up the process!”.

• This is a hot dish, which might seem odd for the summertime, but you really need very ripe tomatoes in order to bring out its full flavor.

• The combination of the seasoned meat and the perfectly roasted tomatoes creates its own kind of delicious sauce that is helped along even further with a dollop of Dijon mustard.

• Tomates Farcies is a classic “home-cooked” meal, you won’t see it in restaurants in France, but rather it’s a dish served at home. If you have any Francophiles coming for lunch this summer, you can impress them with this!

• It’s comforting and refreshing at the same time, and an easy dish to prep ahead of time for a crowd. (see Game Plan notes below!)

• Serve with white, buttered rice, with fresh parsley, and you’ll experience French comfort food at its best! Bon Appétit!

Use large vine ripped tomatoes, with the vines intact. That way you can cut them off the branch and keep their tops. Not only does it look pretty, but it makes it easier to remove their lids when it comes time to fill them.

These are the best type of tomatoes to use. Leave about an inch of vine on the tops to allow for a pretty decoration.

• When you slice off the tops off the tomatoes, be sure to keep each top “married” to the tomato it was sliced from. This helps all the tops fit perfectly on all the bases. Otherwise, it will be hard to match them up later!

• Core each tomato with a melon baller. I have found that this is the easiest way to avoid cutting yourself or damaging the tomato’s insides.

• If the tomatoes are too wobbly and having a hard time staying upright, you can slice a small sliver off the bottom of each tomato to stabilize it. Just don’t slice too much or you’ll create a hole in the bottom of the tomato which will force all the yummy juices out of the tomato!

• Slicing and coring is definitely the most tedious part of the process. But if you have kids at home or family visiting, this is a great group project you can all do together!

The Filling:

• For this recipe, I like to use ground pork since it’s most traditional. But you could also use a mix of beef and pork, or beef, pork, and veal. I have found that fattier cuts of pork work better, as they create a more flavorful stuffing.

• Just ask your butcher for their recommendations for the ground pork with the highest fat content.

• You’ll season the pork with salt, pepper, herbs de Provence, garlic, and fresh parsley. This will add flavor to the stuffing, but it’s the sandwich bread that adds all the lightness!

• You can leave the crusts on, cut the bread into cubes, and toss it gently with milk. This is the same technique my Italian relatives employ for their meatballs, and it does a world of good!

• The bread and the milk make the stuffing in the tomatoes less dense, lighter, and fluffier!

Tomates Farcies ready for the oven!

To Serve:

• Spoon the sauce that has collected at the bottom of the pan, over the tomatoes just before serving and bring them to the table.This dish is typically served “family style” with someone at the table “assigned” to doling out the servings. Since the casserole dish is heavy and hot! The rice can then be passed from a bowl.

• I typically serve two tomatoes per person, since the vine-ripened tomatoes are a bit smaller than, say, a beefsteak tomato, but so much tastier too!

• My mother-in-law always serves hers with white buttered rice, which I think is the perfect accompaniment to this dish since it gives you a vehicle for collecting all that delicious sauce! But a crusty French baguette works too!

Option#1:

• Core and fill the tomatoes with the filling.

• Place in the casserole dish, do not add the wine.

• Cover and refrigerate.

• Then 45 minutes before serving, remove the foil, add the wine and bake at 375F (190C) for 45 minutes. Don’t forget to prepare the rice while the tomatoes are in the oven :)

Option #2:

• Bake ahead of time

• Allow to cool completely.

• Cover and refrigerate.

• Then reheat, covered, at 375F (190C) for 25 minutes or until the meat is warmed through and hot.

• Don’t forget to prepare the rice while the tomatoes are in the oven :)