Tomates Farcies à la Provençale

Tomates Farcies à la Provençale (Provençal stuffed tomatoes) teach one true thing: a tomato must lose water before it can carry flavor. Sear the halves cut side down in very hot olive oil, and their juices concentrate while the edges turn supple enough to hold the filling. That first sear is the dish. Don't replace it with a token bake.

The original entry assumed clear consommé on hand, a saucier's pot of slightly fatty braised-beef gravy, a fine sieve, and a salamander ready to color the gratin. For one cook, one stove, one evening, canned consommé is honest, low-sodium beef stock reduced with a teaspoon of beef fat stands in for the gravy, and the broiler does the salamander's work. Those standing pots were brigade scaffolding, so they go. The hot-oil sear, the covered tomato concassé, the sieved anchovy and crumbs, and the Gratins (No. 268) operation stay, because they make this precise dish.

The source proportion of six tomatoes is already right for a home table: twelve generous halves serving six beside grilled meat or fish, hot from the gratin dish or cold at an outdoor lunch. Watch the moisture in the filling. It must mound on a spoon before you stuff the tomatoes; if it runs, cook it uncovered. Ça se rattrape.