North Carolina Modern Tomato Pie

I grew up in Plymouth, Massachusetts for the first thirty one years but have lived in The Piedmont in Raleigh, North Carolina for the past fifteen. I have to say that in general I'm still not a big fan of the the regions cuisine, including most of Dixie. There is a regional dish called Tomato Pie. I've had it a few times at picnics but was never impressed. Tasted like a lazy, soggy cheese pizza.

I was watching a cooking show from a local Chef called Chef's Life. Vivian the Chef deconstructed the Tomato Pie and I thought, that looks good. It rained all weekend to I got busy in the kitchen and wanted to have a little tomato pie and fish.

I was able to get my hands on the same tomatoes Cherokee Purple tomatoes at the farmers market too.

http://www.pbs.org/food/features/a-chefs-life-episode-5-tomatoes-you-say-heirloom-i-say-old-timey/

I also found a beautiful yellow snapper to mess with too.

Both dishes were worth the effort

Nice lookin food for a heathen

Nice work Dennis! I'm certainly not deep on experience with fish, but the quality of that snapper seems incredible. really nice looking fish. What was that crust you put on it?

Boy, I was right with you until I saw the Shun :spankarse: Gotta give this a try, as we have a ton of big tomatoes sitting on the counter and not much to do with them except eating them straight-up or in salads.

LOL, I knew you'd appreciate the shun, for some reason there are a lot of chips in the blade on this one, but not on any of my others... HEHE

Danny, I did a salt cake, Just whipped 6 egg whites, folded in lots of salt, covered fish entirely, baked 450 for 30 min or so, really easy.

that pie looks damn good.

it's savory?

Mucho Bocho said:

Danny, I did a salt cake, Just whipped 6 egg whites, folded in lots of salt, covered fish entirely, baked 450 for 30 min or so, really easy.

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I would have guessed salt, but I could see the texture was meringue-like....so that makes sense. What's the concept with that approach vs a salt crust, or a nice spice rub?

When the egg white gets hot and cooks it creates a casing that retains moisture, perfectly seasons the fish and protects it from drying out. It's the only ways to eat a whole fish. Ok deep fried in oil and slathered with a tangy sauce is pretty good too. That gives me an idea. Stay tuned. I small two pound fish is really enough for three people. Especially if it's a semi oily fish like this snapper

Mucho Bocho said:

When the egg white gets hot and cooks it creates a casing that retains moisture, perfectly seasons the fish and protects it from drying out. It's the only ways to eat a whole fish. Ok deep fried in oil and slathered with a tangy sauce is pretty good too. That gives me an idea. Stay tuned. I small two pound fish is really enough for three people. Especially if it's a semi oily fish like this snapper

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Awesome...Imma have to give this a go someday, thanks!

I enjoy that show and usually record it. I wish she would have been there when I was going to Kinston all the time. Looks great.

I think we are going to give this a shot tomorrow. Not sure if we will go w/ the mayo mix on the top, substitute sour cream for the mayo, or just do a cheese blend.

Black and Purple tomatoes are great. They have a smokey, savory flavor that lends well to stuff like that. Even better when you season with smoked salt.

Zwiefel said:

I would have guessed salt, but I could see the texture was meringue-like....so that makes sense. What's the concept with that approach vs a salt crust, or a nice spice rub?

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I have tried this with and with eggs in salt crust. With eggs, the salt crust breaks off very easily and exposes meat. Without eggs, the salt crust breaks off but then falls into meat and makes dish too salty. The eggs bind the salt and help with easy crust extraction.

We made the tomato pie late last week and it was great. We topped it with a mixture of mayo, sour cream, gouda and grated romano (kind of a 'use what cha got in the 'fridge mix). Only had time to caramelize the onions for a little over 2 hours, but that was good enough. I headed out of town for three days the next morning so I did not get to have anymore until lunch today. I think it was even better after sitting. My wife used one of her own dough recipes that include sour cream so the crust had a nice tang. It was a good amount of work and generated a nice tower of bowls, strainers, sheet pans, etc. to clean, but is definitely a make-again dish. Thanks for introducing this to us, Dennis!

Dave good for you. What tomatoes did you use? I like your choice of toppings and your wife's crust sound perfect. I resorted to a frozen, roll out shell. It tasted like one too.

I had to laugh about the onions. As much as I enjoyed cooking them for two hours as they slowly go from white to beige. Next time I'm going to pressure roast them, meaning cook the onions in a jar with a dash of baking soda in a pressure cooker.

Used a couple varieties from the garden. Mainly Black Crim (sp?), some really big yellow/ red flamed ones, and some kind of standard reds. We did not use grape tomatoes as we only have a few of those plants this year and are using those for pastas, etc. Since the tomatoes we used were on the larger side the roasted ones stayed in the oven quite a bit longer then the recipe called for, and still were a bit too wet. After we ate the first night I poured out the 'juice' that was pooled in the bottom of the pie pan, and that helped the crust stay a little more firm over the last few days. I told Leah the pie had mayo and tomatoes, so next time we need to work in some bacon :biggrin: