Tomato Pie

As I write this, tomatoes are getting kind of a bad rap because an outbreak of salmonella is being blamed on them. People in many states have gotten sick, and it's not good, and I don't want you to think I'm encouraging you go to out and contract salmonella. But we're thinking about summer cooking these days, and to me that means tomato pie.

I read about tomato pie in Laurie Colwin's book More Home Cooking; this was in 1993. I didn't attempt to make it until several years later, probably around 1999, when Notarius and I were living together. It's not that tomato pie is so hard to make, but it -- at least this form of it -- is a little time consuming. So let's jump right in, and assume that you, dear reader, have, say, a Saturday afternoon with not much going on and a desire to have something really tasty for dinner.

Basically, Laurie Colwin's tomato pie (which she snagged from a Connecticut teashop called Chaiwalla, which I've been to (is it still there?) and is (was?) a completely charming place) is about tomatoes and biscuit and just enough glop to hold everything together.

Take a biscuit dough recipe and make enough for two layers: one will cover the bottom of a 9" pie pan and the other will be the top crust. Since everyone's got their own favorite biscuit dough recipe, some of which involve powdered mixes or cans, I'm going to refrain from offering a recipe here, but if anyone wants one they can let me know and I'll supply one. My point here is: get some dough together. Put half of it, maybe a little more than half, rolled out in the bottom of your pie pan. Set the other half aside.

Now, here I begin to take some liberties with Laurie Colwin, but this recipe is, as far as I'm concerned, so flexible that almost anything goes. Scatter some cheese (I generally use cheddar but provolone would work nicely too) atop that first layer of biscuit dough. Don't put as much as you'd put for pizza; you just want to sort of lace the dough with enough cheese so that it won't get completely soggy from the tomatoes and then have the finished product be impossible to slice neatly. Take about 2 pounds of really gorgeous tomatoes and slice them thinly. Drain them a little -- this is pie that can get really soggy really quickly, and while that tastes good it makes it a bitch to serve -- and then place a layer of tomatoes on top of the cheese.

Now, here is another place where I vary Colwin's recipe. She has you make a thick layer of tomatoes, scatter some herbs on (she suggests basil, chives, or scallions; I favor scallions), and then she has you put on the last layers of filling, which are 1 1/2 cups grated cheddar and about 1/3 cup of mayonnaise thinned with lemon juice. I have done this, and it's fine. However, my own mode is a little more sloppy. I put one layer of tomatoes, and then scatter some cheese and glop on some of the mayo goop (boy, this is not sounding so appetizing, is it, with all this glop and gloop), and then repeat this process until the tomatoes, cheese, and mayo are all used up. I suppose it depends really on how polished a finished product you're really after.

The top layer of filling, however, really should be cheese.

Once the filling is laid in there, you roll out the second layer of biscuit dough and carefully lay it on top of the filling and seal the edges. Prick a few slashes artfully through the top crust and then bake this at 400 degrees. In my experience it takes about 30 minutes to bake this through.

Colwin discusses the secret to this pie, according to the woman who owns Chaiwalla, which would be to bake it in the morning and then reheat it in the evening when you want to eat it. I think this is pretty sensible, particularly for summertime. The thing is, you'd have to be someone who's organized enough to do all this work in the morning so that you could eat it at night. If you're that kind of person, then: fabulous. HOWEVER, even if you're not, it works out fine, since it's good after only one baking as well. (If you decide to go for the morning workout and then reheat in the evening, you reheat it at 300 or 350 or so -- don't let the oven get too hot because then you'll really slam the biscuit crust, which would be a shame.)

This tomato pie is a messy thing to serve and eat, almost no matter what, but it is incredibly good. I have served it at dinner parties and I have served it to Notarius when it was just the two of us planning to spend an evening in front of the television set. Like a black dress, it can be dressed up or down depending on how artfully you handle the top crust and depending on how you accessorize, shall we say. Additionally, you can vary the tomato pie almost endlessly depending on how you feel about cheese. Goat cheeses are really good in the filling. Those who like Swiss cheeses would probably groove on them in tomato pie, but I'm not a big Swiss cheese fan, so have never tried it... but I could see adding in some crumbled blue cheese, or some Bel Paese, or even maybe Port Salut. Definitely Monterey Jack or Muenster. What you want is something that will melt really nicely.

Laurie Colwin claims that this tomato pie can be made well with canned tomatoes, but on this point I'm afraid that I must respectfully disagree. I have tried it many, many times, but I always feel that the pie suffers for it. To me this is an entirely seasonal dish -- high summer, or not at all -- and to be honest it makes us all appreciate the tomato pies I do make all the more.

Enjoy, enjoy...

TOMATO PIE: the basic ingredients list

1 recipe for biscuit dough (double crust)
2 lbs. fresh tomatoes which do not have to be peeled but should be drained slightly
2-3 scallions, or basil, or chives, or whatever floats your boat
2 or so cups of grated cheddar (or other cheeses as you desire), to be used throughout the assembly process
1/3 cup mayonnaise (I use Hellman's), cut with a little lemon juice (2-3 tbs. or so)

On Picnics, In Earnest

In general, Miss Edith thinks picnics are kind of cruddy. The notion of eating outdoors sounds fun but the reality is, you wind up fighting off bugs, which are attacking either you or your food or both, and you're generally also rather uncomfortably seated on the ground, which is not a good place for resting beverages. (When grassy hills come equipped with cup holders, I guess, then we can talk.)
So don't invite me to a picnic.
But here's the thing: picnic food is often really, really good. I mean, who doesn't like potato salad? Only an asshole doesn't like potato salad.

I vividly recall a day when Notarius and I were courting. In those days he still lived in Boston, as I recall, and the time we spent together was minimal. On a hot summer weekday he managed to get away from Boston and come visit me, and on a whim we drove to Hammonasset Beach, which is in Madison, Connecticut, a town I otherwise have little to do with. As I remember it, I'd made pizzas for dinner the night before, and there was a whole onion pizza left over. We sliced it up, wrapped it in tinfoil, and packed ourselves into the car along with a blanket and something to drink; tragically, I cannot remember if we drank wine, beer, or seltzer -- hell, we might have just had a thermos of ice water. But I remember that the pizza tasted incredibly good sitting on the beach, there; we'd parked the car and then walked a long way down the nearly-empty beach until we found just the right spot. Notarius skipped some stones -- he's good at that sort of thing -- and I egged him on by collecting rocks for him to throw -- and by the time we ate I thought I'd never had a more perfect day.
Miss Edith can be sentimental sometimes.

My point is that picnics do not have to revolve around grilled things or cole slaws from the supermarket (though I do like those) or foods that you're always worrying will be spoiled by the time you unpack them.

Some day I will go on a picnic where I serve bellinis in glass glasses, and where there are little dishes of cornichons and bowls of hulled strawberries with cream, but until then, I'll remember that picnic of leftover pizza with the utmost fondness.

Don't worry. Tomato Pie is up next. Though I don't recommend it for casual beach picnics -- just for the record....

Miss Edith Ponders Picnics

Today's New York Times has a nice thing by Mark Bittman about cooking for picnics. It's one of those pieces that's really just an irresistibly long list. I highly recommend perusing said list when thinking about cooking for picnics, or, for that matter, when trying to figure out what to make for dinner any night of the week during the summer.

I found, as I read the list, that a surprising number of the items Bittman mentions are things we eat here at home pretty frequently in the summertime. Cold peanut noodles, for example -- cold Asian noodle dishes are consumed here at least once a week all summer long. Innumerable versions of rice salads are also consumed. Couscous salads are good, too; I favor Israeli couscous in summer salads, though, over the usual little tiny couscous buds, just because I find the more substantial shape carries its own against coarsely chopped vegetables better. (Bittman doesn't seem to care one way or another, if I remember correctly.)

Anyhow, if you're looking for inspiration, this really does seem like a good place to start.

Bittman does not mention tomato pie, which is a summer staple to me, but then again, it takes longer than twenty minutes to assemble. Maybe I'll talk about tomato pie another time...