Meatless Wednesday – Stuffed Tomato with Rice. Did I Say it’s Super Easy?

Super easy recipe adopted from Saveur magazine (one of my favorite magazine that I hope to get a job with one day…)

Satisfying and beautiful – looks like you slaved over a stove for HOURS!  but NOT.  Take advantage of sun-kissed juicy tomatoes now available at your local farmers market.  You can get them at a grocery store but they seem lifeless and so sterile.  No umami tomato taste and that’s what you want.

It’s great as a meal in itself or makes for a wonderful side dish.  Mine came out tasting bit like Spanish rice – so I guess you could use it instead of that too.  Certainly easier, I think…

Like two peas-in-a-pod – I only needed to make two of them for me and honey.  Yes – I was doubtful but one per person will get you full.

Ingredients:

Whole tomatoes

Arborio Rice (~ 1/2 cup)

Parsley, Basil

Salt/Pepper

Olive Oil

Onion

It goes like this.

1) Take a juicy ripe tomato and cut the stem top and set aside.  This will be your “cap” that you will put back unto the stuffed tomato later.  Scrape out all the “inner tomato” leaving the tomato “shell”, reserving the juice and the tomato “meat”.

2) Sautee 1/2 of a minced onion with olive oil until slightly brown and translucent.  You could also add & sautee some shiitaki mushrooms for extra flavor and texture.

3) In a bowl, mix arborio rice that’s been rinsed twice (to minimize the extra gluten, great for risotto, less so for stuffed tomato rice, I think) with the sauteed onion, minced fresh garlic, olive oil, chopped parsley/basil, salt and pepper to taste.  I happen to have some extra tomato juice from a canned tomato which I added to make the rice bit more flavorful and moist.

4) Stuff the rice mixture into the tomato, drizzle some olive oil on top and cap it with the tomato stem.

5) Roast at 375 (convection) for ~50 min.  Cool for ~20 min before diving in.  You can also bake any extra in a casserole next to the stuffed tomatoes like I did which cooks up nicely and crusty (for those of you who like the crispy rice at the bottom of dolsot bibimbap or paella with socarrat.

two tablespoons of love; one for food, one for life.  bon appetit!

About chefkelly

Leveraging a lifelong passion for food and combining a unique cultural mesh of korean cuisine, robust flavors of Texas BBQ and California cuisine, Chef Kelly brings her own signature style to delectable perfect bites exploring complex and often surprising interplay of flavors, textures and colors. She has honed and shared her craft through her experiences from five star restaurant kitchens to private cooking instruction to her self-written food blog at chefkelly.com all made with 2 tablespoons of love; love for food, love for life.
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2 Responses to Meatless Wednesday – Stuffed Tomato with Rice. Did I Say it’s Super Easy?

  1. blessin says:

    I’ve seen you and mike…your appetites can’t be like normal humans 🙂

    • chefkelly says:

      do you mean we eat like birds or do you mean that mike and i have quite the appetite? confused. either way – i will say that we’re not like “normal humans”:)

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