sinful things to do with tomatoes

what you see is roasted tomatoes, nicely caramelized in a 450-degree oven, sitting on top of saffron and smoked paprika scented rice. what you see is gorgeousness. let us all worship at the altar of tomatoes and rice.

this is a slightly revised version of mark bittman's tomato paella from the new york times food section. i've made this three times now: once when i was sick and could barely taste anything, once for my parents while i was home, and once for a couple of my roommates.

in the article that accompanies the original recipe, mark bittman says that you have to try it at least once with just tomatoes, and i would have to say that with respect to this paella, i've become a tomato purist. for the purposes of this post i'll be ignoring any issues regarding the authenticity of this particular paella, because when something tastes this good, you ignore pretentions like authenticity. this rice is pretty fantastic: the smoked paprika and saffron give the rice an earthy, unplaceable flavor and aroma that's balanced by the tomatoes. if you make this in the summer, with homegrown or locally grown tomatoes, i guarantee you that the tomatoes will taste like tomato-infused sunshine.

about the recipe: i would say that the saffron is indispensable - it's unbelievably better with saffron, so go to the grocery store and get some, even if it's really cheap. also, get the best tomatoes possible. i've upped the tomatoes significantly from the original recipe because i found the proportion of tomato to rice to be a little too low in the first go. also, i have no idea what kind of rice mark bittman was using, but my paella consistently takes about 45 minutes in the oven to finish itself off. however, the upside of this is that the tomatoes get roasted and start caramelizing because they're under hot heat for so long, so overall this is a big win. it's a snap to prep - which for me, lover of involved mises en place, is saying something - and once it's in the oven, it's off your mind and you can do something else.

as for additions: surely you could add anything to this, but would you really want to mess with a good thing? if you must, i tried fried egg today, which was pretty good - fried so it's crispy. i made the eggs sunny side up, which was good, but i wish there had been a bit more crunch to them to contrast with the softness of rice and tomato. there's not really any need for meat, unless you were to do up some good-quality bacon and cook the onions/etc in the rendered fat; or perhaps chicken thighs or something like that - but no weak meats like chicken breast, because the acidity of the tomatoes can only be balanced by a nice earthy meat. whatever you do, make sure that you leave the pan in the oven long enough to let the rice start to develop a bit of crustiness - i didn't do this in the most recent permutation, and i missed it. this will also maximize your tomato caramelization time, which is ideal.

tomato paella
3 1/2 cups stock or water
2 to 2 1/2 lbs ripe tomatoes, cored and cut into thick wedges
salt and freshly ground black pepper
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 large onion, minced
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1 to 1 1/2 tablespoons tomato paste
large pinch saffron threads
2 to 2 1/2 teaspoons Spanish pimentón (smoked paprika) - i used smoked paprika from balducci's
2 cups spanish or other short-grain rice - i've tried both goya spanish rice and sushi rice, and slightly prefer the spanish rice
preheat oven to 450 degrees. warm stock or water in a saucepan. put tomatoes in a medium bowl, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and drizzle with 1 tablespoon olive oil. toss to coat.

2. put remaining oil in a 12-inch ovenproof skillet over medium-high heat. add onion and garlic, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and cook, stirring occasionally, until vegetables soften, 3 to 5 minutes. stir in tomato paste, saffron, and paprika and cook for a minute more. add rice and cook, stirring occasionally, until it is shiny, another minute or two. add liquid and stir until just combined.

3. put tomato wedges on top of rice and drizzle with juices that accumulated in bottom of bowl. put pan in oven and roast in the middle of the oven, undisturbed, for 35-45 minutes. the rice is done if it's dry and just tender - take a taste to make sure. you can add more liquid if the rice is dry but not done yet, though this shouldn't be a problem. when rice is ready, turn off oven and let pan sit for 5 to 15 minutes (it absorbs the liquids fully and gets a little stickier).

4. remove pan from oven. if you like, put pan over high heat for a few minutes to develop a bit of a bottom crust before serving.

[serves 4-6]

the way you cut the meat matters

* note: this platter is ~20" wide, and the big slices of beef are ~8" in diameter in the long dimension

ok, here's the lesson first, to be followed by the story: let meat be all that it can be, and it will reward you. the lesson is first because i didn't know where else to put this line, but i couldn't let it go. sorry for the gratuitous text.

we had christmas (or pre-christmas, since we happened to celebrate christmas both before and after christmas this year, but not actually on christmas itself) dinner at my cousins' house in new jersey, and my mom put me in charge of roasting the massive beef rib roast that she had purchased. i had a photo of it, but my camera battery is out, so i'll have to edit this post later.

my mother had also frozen said rib roast, because she had bought it several days before the day of the dinner. considering how long a turkey (a similarly large hunk of meat that is often frozen) takes to freeze, i thought that close to 14 hours in a cool car would be enough to thaw the 10-pound-and-change roast. not so. not so at all, my friends. the behemoth was only just starting to thaw when we arrived at my cousins' house.

luckily, i have a lot of expertise in expedited thawing of frozen meat, having had this phenomenon occur many times at lmf. under no circumstances will i ever condone the microwave thaw, so warm water baths it was. it's important not to let the water get too hot or you encounter the same problem as you have with the microwave: you start to cook the meat. of course, this rule gets relaxed as the time you have to thaw the meat decreases, but we'll just ignore that detail for now. change the water enough times, and you might just succeed in your thawing mission. well, dear readers, i thawed this thing for a straight two hours and it was still frozen inside. i don't even want to delve into the bacteria growth in meat that's encouraged by immersion in a warm water bath. i nuked the thing at 500F for 30 minutes, ok?

but never fear, i popped this thing into the oven anyway, even as the meat thermometer inserted inside decreased to 32 degrees fahrenheit. yeah. not so encouraging. but, i figured, with the cooking method - 30 minutes at 500F, then another hour at 350F - maybe it would all turn out fine. and it did! ok, the roast actually took closer to an hour and a half before, frustrated, i yanked the thing from the oven as soon as it reached the temperature for rare meat. and if you must know, i pulled the thermometer out of the center of the roast because i couldn't countenance waiting any longer. yes, i have patience issues.

i let the dratted thing rest for 15 minutes, well short of the recommended 20 minutes, and started slicing into it between the bones. and...it was perfect inside! the outer edges were well-done but tender, the interior was rare - it was a win for everyone. and it gets better: i started slicing it by dividing it between the bones, as i intended to cut each rib section into two pieces since there were 10 of us. for those of you keeping score, yeah, i unwittingly planned on an entire pound of meat per person. as soon as i realized that half of a rib section was still a ridiculous amount of meat, i started cutting each half into halves, ending up with four to six hunks per rib section. and that's hunks, not slices, people: because medieval-style hunks are way better-looking than pansy-ass delicate slices. slices are for yuppies. additional benefits of medieval-style chunks of meat: when you bring out the platter o' meat, it looks like you went hunting, not just to the supermarket; eating meat like a peasant (a peasant with knife and fork) is entirely more satisfying on a winter night than eating meat with your pinky crooked out. eating meat this way is not unlike eating a roasted chicken with your fingers - it's delicious, slightly guilty, decadent, but entirely pleasurable. eating meat this way convinces you that you're eating meat, not poultry, chateaubriand, caviar, shellfish, or anything fancy-schmancy: you're eating food.

meat muffins: what's in a name?

all morning my mom was talking about "meat muffins," which to you, i'm sure, sounds a bit strange. it sounds a bit strange to me, too! what exactly are they? are they muffins with meat in them? muffin-shaped meat? muffin-shaped ground meat, or some sort of steak crammed into a muffin cup? this would not be as out of the picture as you might think. the possibilities abound for a phrase as awesome as "meat muffin."

it turns out that she was talking about meat pies that i had made and written about here, which happened to have been made in muffin tins for ease of shaping. of course, my mom has even less patience than me, and her meat muffins were more like meat trifles (another great phrase!). there was a layer of biscuit/scone dough, then a layer of chickeny goodness (onions, garlic, ginger, chicken), then another layer of biscuit/scone dough. meat muffin or meat trifle, they were excellent, kind of like a mini chicken pot pie but with a cooler name. as much as we may not like to admit it, the name makes food taste better or worse than it actually is, just like some people think fiji water tastes better than other bottled waters because we trust the name more. would you rather eat a "meat muffin" or a "country style chicken pot pie with thyme biscuit topping"? maybe the masses will be eating their country style chicken pot pies, but i will be eating my meat muffins, and i will be happy doing so. "meat muffins"? love it.

all of this makes me miss my own meat muffins, which i remember fondly with their filling of ground pork and caramelized vegetables. maybe i'll make some this week. regardless, right now, i would eat any meat muffins, because saying "meat muffin" is fun.