05: Pomodoro Risotto
And four other ways to use the last tomatoes of summer
Welcome to Home Cooking Diary, a newsletter on my journey as a home cook—the successes and failures alike. Part cooking log, part recipe recommender, and part chronicle of my thoughts as I feed myself and my family.
Not to cast a pall over this newsletter in the very first sentence, but we’re approaching the end of tomato season. If you’re like me you might be panic-buying all of the heirloom and whatever-other tomatoes you come across. I was somewhat bereft of ideas for how to use them, so I wagered you might be too. Going back through my favorite recipes—those that really showcase tomatoes in season—it occurred to me that pulling my go-to tomato preparations together might not be a bad idea. I’m starting with a risotto that I made up the other day (that turned out great, yay!), using two recipes to guide me.
Pomodoro Risotto
After my most recent Farmers Market run I decided to use the many many tomatoes I bought to make a pomodoro sauce—not with any specific use in mind—inspired by Eric Kim’s recent NYT recipe and story, but made one major change. I didn’t bother straining out the solids, which I would argue makes the sauce more adaptable to various uses by further showcasing the beautiful pieces of tomato that become thoroughly cooked down and melt into the sauce. Does that not make it pomodoro suace in the proper sense? I looked up the difference between a pomodoro and a marinara. The latter is chunkier, so perhaps this is a tad closer to a marinara—however, the sauce itself seems too thin to be so. In any case, it yielded enough sauce to keep us in more tomato dishes than perhaps necessary, plus enough to give as a gift to a dear friend who offered to host us in the city last weekend.
The other night with Reed away, I was planning to grab the dregs of a bag of pasta and throw it together with some of the sauce, but then I remembered homemade corn stock I had in the fridge and realized how long it had been since I made risotto. When I make risotto I generally always use the recipe from the Dimes cookbook, Emotional Eating, as a template. It does a brilliant job guiding me through possible variations based upon whatever ingredients I have on hand. The risotto was exactly what I was hoping for. I was uncertain about the inclusion of corn stock—which I only made because I had a veritable mountain of corn cobs last week that otherwise would have gone into the trash—but it gave the risotto a remarkable sweetness and a subtle note of sweet corn I might not be able to place had I not made it myself. I don’t expect anyone to run home to make corn stock after reading this, but this dish felt like late summer harvest in a bowl. If you have it I highly recommend this use for it.
The following afternoon I had a little less than a bowl’s worth of risotto leftover so I had the brilliant idea of attempting an Italian spin on Gyeran Bap—one of my favorite rice dishes. I scooted the risotto to one side of the saucepan, and fried two eggs in olive oil in the empty space. I transferred both the leftover risotto and the eggs to a bowl, thorougly mixing the egg and risotto until every kernel of rice is coated in egg, as I was once taught after being served Bibimbap in a Korean restaurant. It was a perfect lunch of elevated leftovers, which is essentially what Gyeran Bap is.
But back to the risotto—this is what I did:
Ingredients: Homemade pomodoro sauce, preferably with some tomato chunks intact; 1 c Arborio rice; 3 tbsp butter; shallot or small onion (minced); a few cloves of garlic (minced); 5ish cups vegetable stock (bonus points for homemade); grated parmesan
Melt the butter in a medium saucepan on medium heat, and add the shallot and garlic, stirring regularly until translucent.
Add the arborio rice, a pinch of salt, a few grindings of pepper, and stir to toast for about 30 seconds.
Add a cup of corn stock and stir constantly. Once the space between the rice doesn’t immediately fill up with liquid, when the mixing spoon is dragged through it, add another cup of stock. Repeat with the remaining stock until about a cup is left behind (or until the rice is perfectly cooked through).
Add the last cup of stock and a cup of pomodoro sauce (or more if you like), stirring constantly until mostly evaporated. Turn off the heat and be mindful that the liquid could continue to evaporate in the hot pan. The risotto should be very creamy.
If needed add salt and pepper to taste, and a generous amount of grated parmesan. Spoon into bowls and serve hot.
A Tomato Tart
Another favorite dish of the summer was the tomato tart I made when we visited our friend Jesse in Springs, East Hampton. I followed two Smitten Kitchen recipes, using store-bought puff pastry instead of making a crust from scratch. For the puff pastry crust I followed the instructions of this recipe, which involves rolling out the dough and then parbaking it, before layering on the ingredients. For the remainder of the tart I used her recipe for Mathilde’s Tomato Tart, originally from author Sanaë Lemoine. The tart appears in her novel The Margot Affair (which I recommended a couple of issues ago). I bought three heirloom tomatoes of varying colors, at Balsam Farms in East Hampton (one of the most beautiful farmstands I’ve ever been to), for a maximally pretty tart. They are layered on top of a spread of dijon mustard, and a mixture of parsley, basil and olive oil (mixed ahead of time in a food processor). I highly recommend both of these recipes. I suggest using Dufour puff pastry. We were only able to find Pepperidge Farm and it was trickier to roll out into our desired shape.
Tomato Confit
The last couple of years, I’ve lightly preserved my end-of-season tomatoes by making tomato confit. My favorite method comes from Alison Roman and can be applied to any tomatoes you happen to have, whether they be huge beefsteaks or tiny cherry tomatoes. Just chop the large ones into smaller chunks. Into a Dutch oven they go, covered completely with olive oil, and in the oven they go for two plus hours. It’s a really fun and low maintenance Sunday project. When I’m shorter on time I use Dan Pelosi’s recipe. I also recommend his Tomato Confit Pasta. The last time I made it (just a few weeks ago), I added sweet corn.
A Caprese Salad
Truly, what is better than an excellent Caprese? Purchase some fresh, high quality mozzarella, slice it up along with a big heirloom tomato, layer them together, and top with leaves of fresh basil and drizzles of some good olive oil. And of course salt and pepper. In Springs, Jesse made an amazing Caprese Salad that we ate alongside the tomato tart and a bit of homemade pesto. 10/10 recommend a meal made up exclusively of tomatoes.
Tomato-Mayo Toast
Slice up some ripe tomato, salt it. Toast up some good crusty sourdough, spread mayo (or salted butter) on it, then layer the tomatoes on top. Drizzle it with the good finishing olive oil (suggestions here and here), more salt and also some grindings of pepper. I prefer regular old Hellman’s mayo over the trendier brands around these days. Feel free to come up with variations on this by using ingredients like chili flakes, dried herbs like oregano, fresh herbs like basil or parsley. Anchovies! I find myself wondering how this would be with sardines, but hesitate to try with in-season tomatoes, lest they be a distraction from the main event.
There is a spectacular fresh tomato pasta that I made several times last summer that I planned to include here. To my great frustration, I can’t find it, so I’m going to end here. I’ll include it in a future letter as soon as I track it down or recreate it.
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While I have you, a few things I recommend this week:
*Never Have I Ever: a delightful teen comedy series on Netflix that might actually be in my top 10. I’m not exaggerating. This show is perfect. Season 3 just aired (I loved it just as much as the previous two seasons), and I continue to marvel at how consistent the quality of the writing, production, and performances are.
*Fire & Blood: As a longtime Game of Thrones obsessive (books and show, except most of the final season), I watched House of the Dragon, HBO’s prequel, based on this book, along with everyone else. I was disappointed in episode one (too much CGI makes me sad and despairing for the future of tv and cinema, and none of the characters seemed to have that je ne sais quoi), but leave it to episode 2 to pull me right in. I weirdly didn’t realize that George R.R. Martin had written so many other full length books set in Westeros. I recommend this to anyone who misses being in the Song of Ice and Fire universe as much as I did, and can’t wait for more episodes to air. It’s written in the form of a history of the Targaryen Dynasty, so there is very little dialogue—I’m excited to see how it’s brought to life.
*TART’s Sour Cherry Vinegar: I’ve long been a fan of Chris Crawford’s beautiful vinegars (and vinegar aside I am obsessed with her branding). My favorite, Sour Cherry, was recently restocked. I also love Lavender, Rose, and Celery, and am dying to try her forthcoming Lemon Singer Vinegar. I use them the way I would use any old vinegar (salad dressings, added to soups or other dishes to balance flavors, etc), but one of my favorite applications is to put it in a glass with ice and top it with seltzer (or even just tap water) for an elevated nonalcoholic bev.