Tomato Pie

This is a dish that we like really well, but there are some issues with it that I think that I have finally solved.

But first, a word about tomatoes. You MUST use homegrown tomatoes for this recipe because the flavor is so much better than grocery store tomatoes that tend to be bland.

And here are some tips that I have learned about tomatoes:

• If you don’t want them to get pecked by birds; eaten by worms; or chomped by turtles, you need to pick them green.
• You can confidently pick them green as long as they have a white star at the blossom end of the fruit–it can be really tiny. The skin should be shiny/glossy.

So, the first problem that you have to tackle with tomato pie is the MOISTURE. Oh my goodness–so much liquid in tomatoes. A lot of recipes call for sliced tomatoes, but I prefer diced tomatoes. I diced up all the tomatoes pictured above and added 2 teaspoons of salt to them.

I let them sit for about 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, this is what they looked like:

I poured these into a large colander and thoroughly drained them.

Then I spooned them into a large measuring cup to see how much there was (important for the next step.)

I had about 10 1/2 to 11 cups of tomatoes. I poured these back into the mixing bowl.

Here’s where what I do deviates pretty significantly from other recipes. Many recipes don’t call for any sort of thickener to absorb all the liquid. Those that do, call for a small amount of cornstarch, which in my opinion, doesn’t adequately deal with how much liquid is exuded by the tomatoes, so I use Minute Tapioca.

You can find this with the puddings and jello mixes in the grocery. I prefer tapioca because it absorbs a lot of liquid, doesn’t impact the flavor, and it doesn’t get gummy when it cools.

For this amount of tomatoes, I used a scant 2/3 cup of minute tapioca.

I stirred that in and then started working on the other ingredients for the filling.

You will need green onions thinly sliced. I used about 10–approximately 1/each cup of drained tomato.

Add those to the bowl of tomatoes. Then get fresh basil–quite a lot. (Dried basil cannot be substituted for fresh in this recipe.)

Remove the leaves from the stems and cut them into thin trips and add to the bowl. I probably used about 3/4 of cup of thinly sliced basil.

Stir all of this together.

At this point, the tomatoes and the minute tapioca should have been combined for at least 15 minutes–they must sit combined for at least 15 minutes prior to baking so that the tapioca get hydrated. Pour this mixture into a greased casserole dish and bake for 30 minutes at 375 degrees.

So this is another place where what I do differs pretty dramatically from what you’ll find in other recipes. My thought process is that by baking the filling separately, the minute tapioca has a chance to absorb most of the water, so that if you want to bake it in a pie shell, it won’t sog out the crust.

Here’s what it looks like when you take it out of the oven.

And here’s what it looks like after I stirred it together.

You can see that the filling is thickened and doesn’t have tons of liquid pooling at the bottom of the dish.

So, at this point you have two choices about how to finish it and I’ll show you how to do either way.

In a traditional pie shell:

To finish it in a pie shell, you will need to blind bake a pie shell with pie weights, or dry beans until it’s brown.

Then fill the crust with the pie filling.

Top with cheese mixture.

Bake at 375 for 25 minutes, or until the crust and cheese are brown and the filling is bubbling.

The filling is still soft, but you can actually serve it with a pie server. Right out of the oven, the crust was still crisp.

Deconstructed Tomato Pie–better for making ahead, or if you’ll have leftovers

Spray a casserole dish with non-stick spray and fill it about halfway with tomato pie filling. Then top with a thin layer of cheese mixture.

Bake for 25 minutes at 375 degrees until the cheese is brown and the filling is bubbly.

You can make the “croutons” out of any pie crust. I made mine from scratch, but you could easily use a refrigerated crust from the grocery. I just cut it into small pieces and baked it on a parchment lined baking tray.

To serve, cut a piece and sprinkle with “croutons”:

The Cheese Mixture for a 9″ pie (I doubled this to make the pie and casserole dish pictured above):

2 cups (8 oz) shredded sharp cheddar cheese

1/3 cup regular mayonnaise (I prefer Duke’s)

Combine well and using your fingers, pat into thin sheets and place on top of tomato filling, overlapping as necessary until the entire surface is covered.

This is a really delicious recipe–I think you’ll like it!