tomatoes filled with rice

I made this recipe from Orangette twice, actually, in the past week or so, once to experiment and once to serve to guests. It was delicious both times. It’s vegetarian and pretty simple, but the rice turns all soft and risotto-y and delicious. Some notes:

• The giant tomatoes I used the first time were a better balance of rice-to-tomato, but since they were hot-house grown, the little ones I used the second time actually tasted better. My advice: hold out for good tomatoes – preferably non-refrigerated.
• On roasting potatoes: the second time, I put them in their own dish, cut them a little thicker, salt-and-peppered them, and made sure to really really coat them with oil. I also cooked them at higher heat (~450F) for the last ten minutes after I took the tomatoes out. Some combination of these things helped a lot.
• Dried basil is an okay substitution here for once, since it gets cooked so much.
• I made fresh breadcrumbs the second time, whereas the first time I used “Italian” breadcrumbs in a box – texture was probably better the second time but if you don’t have a loaf of nice bread and a food processor sitting around it’s not a big deal.
• No really, do roast the tomatoes for that full time. They need it.
• And, as for a risotto, it really does need to be arborio rice.
• Correspondingly, if you’re making this for company, remember that you can’t skimp on the baking time and they may hate you forever if dinner is an hour late (I’m just saying. This is also why I didn’t pause to take pictures!)

For the dinner party last night, I made a green salad and topped it with sliced roast chicken breasts so we could pretend there was protein, and this was basically way too much food for everyone (in a good way). We had it with a cheap Montepulciano which was lovely – although it’s a veggie dish, warnings about pairing reds with heavy tomato sauces apply. I have leftover tomatoes so I’ll probably do it again in a week or so – the prep doesn’t take that long, and it’s warm and comforting and also looks deceptively fancy.