Carmelized, Stuffed Tomatoes

Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything has so far been completely foolproof. It has guided me to cook with success for any recipe that I've tried, whether it's for a classic dessert or simple soup. All that I've had to do is follow its spelled-out directions. However, since this is my fourth blog post I  not only challenged myself by cooking a less common dish, but also by altering the recipe!

Tomatoes stuffed with cilantro-lime rice

The author's original recipe for oven-roasted tomatoes stuffed with rice was geared toward Italian cuisine. It called for Italian sausage, white rice, extra-virgin olive oil, and parsley. I almost didn't go through with the recipe when I found out that I didn't have any Italian sausage on hand. Then, looking at a chart of alternate vegetable-and-filling combinations that the author provided, it occurred to me that I could make substitutions for each ingredient. The chart had combinations for several cuisines, including Chinese (stuffed mushrooms with jasmine rice, soy sauce, and sesame oil)  and Indian (stuffed chayote with bay leaves, yogurt sauce, and basmati rice) (Bittman 371). This told me by example that if I kept my substituted ingredients aligned with one cuisine, I'd be more likely to have success in terms of flavor. My only other hesitance was about texture. Luckily, the author had some encouraging information on this, too: "You can easily improvise stuffed vegetables. . . keep in mind that moist stuffings work in any vegetable" (Bittman 369). To me, this meant that it would be possible to make ingredient substitutions as long as I preserved the approximate consistency of the original filling. With this combined knowledge about flavor and texture, I was able to recreate my stuffed tomatoes around Mexican cuisine. Instead of Italian sausage, I chose ground pork as my meat. The lean ground pork had less juice than fatty sausage, so I made up the difference by using brown rice instead of white. Brown rice needs more water to cook. Finally, I kept to the Mexican style by making cilantro-lime rice and using a neutrally flavored oil. I omitted the Italian parsley and olive oil.

Hollowed out tomato (left), and
seeds (center) and white core (top
right) to be discarded 

Once my self-created filling was complete, I had to stuff it into prepared tomatoes. The book helped me hollow out the tomatoes with the following instructions: "Cut a 1/4-inch slice from the smooth end of a tomato... Use a spoon to scoop out all of the insides, leaving a wall about 1/4-inch thick. Discard the woody core and seeds" (Bittman 372). This was so explicit that I didn't have any questions about which parts of the tomato to keep or throw away, or how much of the tomato to leave whole. As described, the quarter-inch wall left the tomatoes just strong enough to hold the filling without sagging. The instructions also helped me roast my tomatoes for the same amount of time later on. Their uniform thickness made them cook evenly.

When I tasted the finished dish, it was delicious--maybe even more so than the original Italian dish might've been! Thanks to How to Cook Everything, I was not only successful when following its recipes, but its side notes and graphics as well. I'm actually glad that I didn't have any Italian sausage to cook with today. The situation allowed me to be creative, and that will help me cook as an adult; hopefully I won't need to use a cookbook for every single dish I make. What improvisations have you made while cooking? How did you know that something was going to work? Are there general guidelines that you use to help you? Please, share them with me in the comments below!