Edouard de Pomiane’s Tomates a la Creme
August 12, 2015
De Pomiane's Cooking in Ten Minutes may be my favorite cookbook. If you don't know it, you're in for a treat.
I wait all year to cook his extremely simple tomatoes in cream, which may be the first three-ingredient dish I ever attempted. All it takes is butter, tomatoes and cream. (Although I admit that I occasionally break down and sprinkle on a little salt as well.) And of course, you do need a bit of bread to mop up the spectacular sauce.
Here's the recipe, via Elizabeth David, from the 60th anniversary issue of Gourmet (September 2001).
I'd print the photograph – the tomatoes are right here, sitting in front of me – but this dish is the best argument I know against taking pictures of your food. And I wouldn't want to do a single thing that might deter you from cooking this most delicious summer dish.
(Although the version printed above is the one I've always used, I've just discovered that the version in the first English translation, pictured above, from 1948 is slightly different. It includes not only salt and pepper, but also onions. Do what you will with this information.)
And since I'm looking through this book, I thought I'd toss in the preface so you get some sense of the delightful Dr. de Pomiane. (He was a serious scientist who also had a long-time cooking show on French radio.)
Categorised in: Snacks and Beginnings, Vegetables
6 Comments
Thank you so much Ruth for these daily emails. I love them and try a lot of these recipes.
I’m making these tomatoes tonight. Judy North
I would also add half a garlic clove minced finely to the sauce. Thanks again for another outstanding history lesson from Gourmet.
Judy, I hope you like them as much as I do! And GM – as far as I’m concerned, a little garlic (or a lot), is always a good idea.
I’m here because I was trying to figure out what to do with the late-season tomatoes I just got in my farm box – and I was so intrigued by the comment on the lack of photogenicity here! Mmm, so good. (Further obscuring their heritage, I ate them with black beans.) And – I completely did not understand the Zelda side story, until at the last my tomatoes started “slipping” out of their skins. At which point I literally laughed aloud.
While I’m here … I read “My Kitchen Year” cover to cover last weekend immediately upon arrival. I know your goal is to get us back into the kitchen, but I’ve been exhausted lately by too much work and stress. I thought you’d enjoy knowing that just reading about your kitchen-generated self-comfort was a comfort to me.
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