Molly Wizenberg's Slow-Roasted Tomatoes

Would you like to know how you, too, can eat 13 plum tomatoes in one sitting, aided only by a second dining companion who, let's be honest here, never actually gets his fair share because you are far too busy eating the tomatoes all by your greedy, greedy self? (Try to be gracious, really, and let the poor man stab a few onto his fork. He's had a long day.)

You take the plum tomatoes, you halve them, you sprinkle them with a wee bit of salt and ground coriander and then you let them go in the oven until they're shriveled and wrinkly and fragrant, and oozing oil and juices. If you're patient and easily distracted by television or books or good conversation, then do these the way Molly tells you to: in a low oven for close to 6 hours.

If you're anything like me, impatient, and positively bewitched by a roasting tomato (oh, I'm hopeless - by any tomato at all, really), make the oven hotter and then chain yourself to a sturdy piece of furniture for two hours, because otherwise you'll be absolutely compelled to continuously wrenching open the oven door in despair because it's not time to take the tomatoes out yet, but you're starving and they're gorgeous and that smell! God help me, I can't wait any longer.

The tomatoes on the edge of the pan get sort of barely leathery and the ends are faintly crisped and charred. The tomato taste is so concentrated that it almost turns into something else. These are the ones to be lifted off the pan with quick fingers, they're hothothot, and popped into your mouth while the table's being set. The tomatoes in the middle of the pan are thicker and filled with a delectable slurry of juice and oil. These are the ones to pile on a piece of good country bread along with a judicious drizzle of oil.

Of course, you could also plop them on your plate alongside whatever you're having for dinner or chop them up and toss them with freshly cooked pasta or stick them in a sandwich, even. With good manners and restraint, you could even store these in the fridge for a while. But I'll bet that most of them just get speared by your fork and popped in your mouth right then and there, hot out of the oven, and before anyone else gets wise and comes along to share in the bounty.

They taste best this way, I think.

Slow-Roasted Tomatoes

Ripe tomatoes, preferably Roma
Olive oil
Sea salt
Ground coriander

1. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Fahrenheit. (If you're feeling impatient, preheat the oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit.)

2. Wash the tomatoes, cut off the stem end, and halve them lengthwise. Pour a bit of olive oil into a small bowl, dip a pastry brush into it, and brush the tomato halves lightly with oil. Place them, skin side down, on a large baking sheet. Sprinkle them with sea salt and ground coriander—about a pinch of each for every four to six tomato halves.

3. Bake the tomatoes until they shrink to about 1/3 of their original size but are still soft and juicy, 4 to 6 hours (at 300 degrees Fahrenheit, these are ready after 2 hours). Remove the baking sheet from the oven, and allow the tomatoes to cool to room temperature. Place them in an airtight container, and store them in the refrigerator.

Comments

[Alanna]

Six hours? Those are fast-roasted tomatoes in my book. : - ) Try roasting meaty tomatoes (yes, like Romas, but not the juicier tomatoes best for salads) for 10 hours or even up to 12 hours - the magic timing I got to after testing something like 16 or more batches in 2005. I don't think you'll be sorry! Slow-roasted tomatoes freeze beautifully too --

[Lydia]

Welcome to the world of slow-roasted tomatoes. I'm with Alanna, though -- I do mine low and sloooooooow, for 8-10 hours at least, at 200F. I cook them with garlic and thyme from the garden, sea salt, black pepper and olive oil. I always use a few right from the oven, but the rest go into the freezer, where they wait happily all winter to come out, a few at a time.

[Christina]

I follow Molly's directions, except usually roast a little longer at 200, and come up with spectacular tomatoes every time. I never would have considered coriander until she posted it, and now I can't imagine roasted tomatoes without it. Aren't they spectacular?

[claudia]

see? and i thought i made these up... so while everyone was confiting away and i watched with envy, i did the immediate gratification version - like yours. today i will add the coriander!

[Deborah]

These sound heavenly. And since my Roma plants were just playing possum to trick me and have now begun to grow fruit like crazy again, I'll have something new to try!

[Leah]

Why is everything just a million times better if it has a slurry? Especially a tomato slurry. Oh, tomatoes.

[Leisureguy]

I'm making these tomorrow, and The Wife just received some Black-Olive Sea Salt from a friend. I'll definitely use that.

[Molly]

WHOA! That was seriously weird, clicking over to see, la di da, what Luisa might be up to today, and then wham! There's my name, at the top of the page! What a trip! Hee hee.

So glad you like the tomatoes, ma cherie! It's an honor to see them through your eyes. xo

[Christine]

These look fantastic! I was going to head into the market today to pick up some fish and now I'll definitely be on the look out for some of the late tomatoes. I'll have to wait until after Wednesday though since I can't imagine turning on the oven in this freakishly hot October. Bah to 87 degree days, says I.

[Leisureguy]

Well, who knows whether they will store well? I tasted one and then ate the lot. I'll have to get more Roma tomatoes the next time I'm at the market. I think the next batch I'll sprinkle with a little cayenne along with the black-olive salt and coriander.

[Hillary]

Wow. What pictures and tomatoes! I'm a huge fan of Molly's and appreciate you making one of her recipes!

[Mercedes]

How much do I love this?!! This is so wonderfully written, and I love your passion for tomatoes. What with our weather here, we still have a good dose of greenmarket tomatoes left before the first frost, which means plenty more time for slow-roasted tomatoes! If you can contain yourself, they make wonderful tomato soup, especially with a little cheeese panini (or I seem to remember your cornmeal-wheat-cheese rolls) alongside.

[Luisa]

Alanna and Lydia - I think I'd need to do those at night so I didn't get tempted. 10-12 hours? Holy cow.

Christina - they are indeed spectacular, and I love how you don't even know what is the coriander and what's the tomato, they just blend so seamlessly together.

Claudia - smart lady. Who needs confit when there are these tomatoes? I heartily concur.

Deborah - possum-playing tomato plants in October, that sounds like a jackpot!

Leah - that's one of those questions... tomatoes mmmm slurries mmmm yesssss

LeisureGuy - black olive sea salt? Roasted tomatoes? Match made in heaven, I'd say.

Molly - I thought you might like that ;) Thanks for the recipe, sweets! This is like Molly week in our house - tomatoes, apple butter, and more...

Christine - I couldn't help it. I used the oven all night - sterilizing glasses for apple butter, roasting squash. I know it's 87 degrees out, but it's October 8th for crying out loud! Does not compute... :)

LeisureGuy - HA! Yours befell the same fate as mine - instant devouring. Glad you liked them. Cayenne sounds inspired.

Mercedes - Thanks! Containing myself around these things is proving to be difficult, at best. But maybe I should just buy a whole tray of Romas at a wholesale market and make extra for soup... (so, tell me, how do you transform them?)

[Mercedes]

This is an approximation of something I made once, you could skip the sundried tomatoes and just use the oven roasted ones:

3-Way Tomato Soup

1 tbl olive oil, 1 tbl butter
1 onion, diced
1 garlic clove, minced
4 sundried tomatoes, chopped
3/4 cup slow-roasted tomatoes, chopped
1 tomato, chopped
3 cups stock/broth
1/4 cup cream
torn basil leaves

Melt oil and butter in saucepan. Add onion, garlic, saute until softened. Add tomatoes and broth, simmer until everything is softened and combined, 20-25 mins. Puree with an immersion blender. Season with salt and pepper. Add cream, serve with basil leaves.

[Casey]

I've treated Roma tomatoes like this for several years but loved reading your experience. A few days ago I burned a mini-batch and was forced to eat all the non-charcoaled bits by myself. Destroying the evidence, as it were.

[Luisa]

Mercedes - lovely, thank you so much! Can't wait to try, if I can keep from eating the tomatoes first.

Casey - ha, I like that vision :)

[Kevin]

Sadly, I have yet to try roasting tomatoes. It must go on my lengthening to-do list.

[Katherine Neumon]

I roasted some tomatoes Monday according to the 6 hour version of the recipe and they were unbelivably rich and perfect. Do you think the flavor gets shortchanged or altered at all by the higher temp/faster cook? I might start scheduling my life around how long it takes to roast a tomato!

[Luisa]

Katherine - I don't think it gets "short-changed", but I do think the tomatoes probably taste a little different. No less delicious, though, which is the main thing. Sometimes you just don't have six hours in a row! Glad you liked them...

[Leisureguy]

I’m making another batch of slow-roasted tomatoes today. 13 Roma tomatoes covers my Silpat baking sheet with 5 rows of 5 tomato halves, with one half left for me to eat. I will brush them with olive oil, sprinkle them all with sea salt, and then do rows 1-5 this way:

1. Sprinkle with ground coriander
2. Sprinkle with ground pepper
3. Sprinkle with granulated garlic
4. Sprinkle with cayenne
5. Sprinkle with grated Parmesan

That should be interesting.

[Marce]

oh yeah, it is very hard to wait for a few more hours, but I usually do mine in 4 hours or so and love them like that (though after hearing all this about 10 hours, i need to try that too). I use garlic with mine too and put them in a jar in the fridge with a bit of olive oil and the garlic (don´t worry, guys, they just last a few days, no botulism for me). It´s amazing how the flavors intensify and how it doesn´t have the acidity level a sundried tomato can have.

[Chef Tom]

Sounds great! I have a bunch of tomatoes that I need to use before they go bad.

[Polina]

This looks lovely :-). I wonder whether it's possible to slow roast tomatoes in the crock pot -- does anyone know?

[Luisa]

Polina - by nature, the crockpot cooks with wet heat, which results in moist, stewy results. The oven cooks with dry heat, which is what you need to dry these tomatoes out into super-concentrated, barely leathery delicacies. So, I actually wouldn't use the crockpot. Anyone disagree?

[LyB]

I just had to tell you, I made these yesterday and oh, my, are they ever addictive! So good, so good, so incredibly good! Thanks so much for posting about these!

[Kate]

these were awesome...roasted them at 190 fahrenheit for 5 hours at the same time that i was confit-ing duck...nom nom nom