Stuffed tomatoes

This dish started with a culinary crisis. What to to cook for dinner when all you have in the fridge is minced meat, loads of good looking tomatoes and you are not allowed carbohydrates? Easy solution: stuffed tomatoes. Technically, stuffed tomatoes have rice or bread crumbs on their filling. But, I was not going that detail to get in the middle of a respectable meal.

Stuffed tomatoes

Ingredients

• 1 Kg of tomato (it depends a lot on the size of the tomatoes).
• 500g  of minced meat (for best results, I use a mix of pork and beef)
• 3 small yellow  onions finely sliced
• 1 clove of garlic grounded
• Olive oil
• Chinese five-spice powder to taste (or, if you want a more mediterranean taste a mix of rosemary, tarragon, thyme, oregano and basil).
• Hot paprika
• Sultanas to taste.
• Quark to taste
• Freshly ground salt and pepper

Method

Slice off the top of the tomatoes and hollow out with a spoon, leaving a thick shell (about 2cm).

In a large frying pan, put about 2 table spoons of olive oil and let it heat until is sizzling. Put the onions and the garlic and mix well.  Season with  freshly ground salt and pepper to taste. Put the heat to medium and let the onions caramelize.

When the onions are golden and soft, add the minced meat and mix well. Add the Chinese five-spice powder and the paprika to test. Let the minced meat brow. If you want, you can add sultanas.

Once the meat is brown, add quark until you obtain a consistent paste.

Fill the tomatoes with this mix and  put them on a oven proof dish, previously greased with olive oil (a thin layer will do). Sprinkle with olive oil, salt and pepper.

Bake for about 15min at 200 oC.