Six days a week, at about 10.30am, the smell of roasting chicken climbs in through our first-floor bedroom window. A message from the back kitchen window of the tavola calda (canteen) on the ground floor. When we first moved in, I’d try to remember to close the window, and if I forgot, to waft the intruder away with a towel. Not because I don’t like the smell of roasting chicken, but because it didn’t seem appropriate for the bedroom. Wafting was useless, of course, even closing the window was no guarantee. In fact, any resistance at all seemed to make the smell even stronger. So we stopped resisting, and the smell, as if sensing our acceptance, mellowed in its drift across the room.
Now, four years on, the smell is as much a part of the room as the bedsheets and coconut hair cream. I learn from food scientist Harold McGee that chicken fat, coconut, also pineapple, peaches and dairy products, are abundant with likeable molecules called lactones, which take their name from the Latin word for milk, and are instantly recognisable for a sweet-creamy quality heightened by frying.
By midday, the smell has gone. If I stick my head far enough out of the kitchen window I might be able to catch it again as the now fully roasted chickens will have been carried from the back kitchen and lined up in the glass-fronted counter of the canteen. Also, there is the smell of roast potatoes, and veal in gravy, lasagne, cannelloni, parmigiana, potato bake and, at this time of year, rice salad, roasted red peppers and rice-stuffed tomatoes. The pull of lunch is great.
Classic Roman-style rice stuffed tomatoes are generally made with uncooked rice, tomato pulp, olive oil, garlic and basil, so require baking for about 50 minutes so the rice can cook through. For this alternative version, the rice is pre-boiled until a couple of minutes-off-done before being mixed with the other stuffing ingredients, which makes for a shorter cooking time. It’s important that the tomatoes are ripe, but not mushy, and hollowed out carefully.
During the last minutes of cooking, the rice should swell and lift the lids, making them look like jaunty hats. Once out of the oven, let the tomatoes rest for about 15 minutes, and up to a couple of hours, so the flavours can settle, then serve with salad, pickled or boiled vegetables, some yoghurt and cucumber if you like. Of course if you now fancy a roast chicken too, they also go well with that.
Tomatoes stuffed with rice, tuna, capers and anchovy
Prep 30 min
Cook 40 min
Serves 4
8 ripe, medium-sized tomatoes
Salt and black pepper
200g rice
150g tuna, packed in olive oil
1 tbsp capers
4 or 5 anchovy fillets, chopped (or 1 heaped tbsp parmesan)
2 tbsp chopped fresh herbs (parsley, basil, oregano)
1 tsp dried oregano
2 tbsp olive oil, plus more for the top and the dish
Using a sharp knife, cut the tops off the tomatoes, then use a teaspoon to scoop out the pulp and seeds, catching them in bowl. Work carefully to remove as much as possible while keeping the tomato intact. Sprinkle the hollow of the tomatoes with salt and put them cut side down on kitchen towel for 20 minutes.
Press the tomato pulp and seeds through a sieve or pass through a food mill. Boil the rice in salted water for two minutes less than the recommended time, drain and mix with the tomato juices, tuna, capers, anchovies or parmesan, herbs, two tablespoons of olive oil and lots of black pepper.
Put the rice mixture into the hollow tomatoes, filling them right to the top. Place in an oiled ovenproof dish, and put on lids. Bake at 200C (180C fan)/390F/gas 6 for 15 minutes, in which time the rice will finish cooking and swell, lifting the lids a little. Allow to sit for at least 20 minutes - and up to a few hours - before serving.
