Rachel Roddy’s recipe for tomatoes stuffed with breadcrumbs, chickpeas and herbs | A kitchen in Rome

A well-seasoned and comforting meal to ease you into the autumn months

At this time of year, baked tomatoes stuffed with rice and surrounded by a packing-chip sea of potatoes are typical all over central and southern Italy, and in many other places besides. So much so that when I see a tray of those wrinkled red caps in a bakery or canteen-like tavola calda (literally, “hot table”), it doesn’t cross my mind that the hollowed-out tomatoes underneath might be filled with something other than rice. It was only when the woman behind the counter was wrapping my two portions of cannelloni and four slices of margherita pizza that another person’s order alerted me to the fact that these tomatoes were in fact filled with breadcrumbs, chickpeas, sausage, cheese and herbs. Suddenly, the tomatoes were the most appealing item behind the steamed-up glass, and the only thing I could want. We were in Tavola Calda in Latina, just south of Rome, during the lunchtime rush, which is why I didn’t feel able to add to my order, but then I was dissatisfied with my lunch.

But dissatisfaction gave me a reason to pull Claudia Roden’s A Book of Middle Eastern Food from the shelf, for her chapter dedicated to stuffed vegetables, which draws inspiration from Turkish, Uzbekistani, Azerbaijani, Armenian, Greek, Egyptian, Persian, Syrian, Lebanese, Saudi Arabian and north African recipes. Having noted that almost any vegetable can be stuffed, Roden adds that the most common filling for a hollowed-out vegetable is a well-seasoned mix of chopped onion, minced meat, rice, chopped parsley, and maybe chopped tomato; and she then goes on to give seven filling variations – some with rice, some with meat (no pork), and with various herbs and spices. She also provides a not disappointing filling including chickpeas, which is what I have adapted, also with inspiration from the busy Tavola Calda, for this week’s recipe.

I haven’t included sausagemeat in my version, but if you wish to, squeeze the meat from a couple of pork sausages and crumble it in at the same time as the chickpeas. Seasoning is fundamental here – salt, obviously (a small amount at various stages is better than all at once), as well as a little minced garlic and herbs. While my instinct here is for parsley and either rosemary or sage, dried mint also works wonderfully, as does cinnamon, whose warm, woody sweetness works beautifully with tomatoes, as it does in tomato sauce, but that’s another column.

How long the tomatoes take to bake will depend very much on their ripeness; harder ones need 10-20 minutes more than those with softer shells, but keep an eye on them and leave them to rest for a while before serving. I also think tomatoes stuffed this way benefit from being baked close together in a ceramic oven dish, which is why I baked cubed potatoes separately; some salted yoghurt or mashed courgettes or aubergine are also good accompaniments. As in the best and busiest tavole calde, serve the wrinkled tomatoes just hotter than room temperature.

Tomatoes stuffed with breadcrumbs, chickpeas and herbs or spices

Serves 4

8 tennis ball-sized tomatoes
Salt and black pepper
½ garlic clove, minced
1 red onion, peeled and diced
Olive oil
1 tbsp minced flat-leaf parsley
1 tsp minced rosemary, or mint, or ground cinnamon
200g cooked chickpeas, and/or the meat squeezed from two pork sausages
100g soft white breadcrumbs (from two-day-old bread)
2-3 tbsp grated cheese (whatever you have)

Cut the caps off the tomatoes, then use a teaspoon (and knife, if necessary) to scoop the pulp and seeds into a bowl, in order to hollow out the tomatoes.

Sprinkle the insides of the tomato shells with salt, and keep the caps. Remove any hard, white bits from the pulp/seeds, then mash the rest, seasoning with a little salt and the garlic.

In a frying pan on a medium-low heat, soften the onion in four teaspoons of olive oil with a pinch of salt. Add the herbs and chickpeas (and sausages, if using), then add the breadcrumbs, grated cheese and enough of the tomato pulp to make a soft stuffing.

Arrange the empty tomato shells in an oiled ovenproof dish, then fill them with the chickpea and breadcrumb mix. Put on the lids and bake for 30-45 minutes, or until the tomatoes are baked through, a little wrinkled and the stuffing cooked.