Addicted: Tomato Confit

A while back, when anticipating a glorious end-of-summer tomato harvest, I was having a discussion with Mandy about things to do with tomatoes. She shot me this link to a French recipe for tomates confits, a sublime concoction she said is all over France during tomato season. Since then I've been obsessing about trying it, and finally, late last week, I had the chance.

As I finally had a pile of tomatoes to use--some from upstate and lots from Mandy's generously-shared CSA booty--I took advantage of a cool day to turn on the oven. I basically used the above recipe (don't worry if you don't speak French--a quick Interweb search for "tomato confit" turns up lots of similar ones in English), and made three different batches at the same time: one with plum tomatoes, another with red grape, and a third with Roma. I must admit, too, I was lazy and didn't peel them first, but most of the skins came off easily about two hours in.

Three-plus hours later I had heaven on a cookie sheet. The stuff is rich, sweet, and completely addictive. I can also see why you need in-season tomatoes for this--it really wouldn't work with the supermarket variety you get the rest of the year. I've only had it on bread so far, but I'm sure it'll be great on pasta, meat, or who knows what else. (Heck--I just flashed on plopping a dollop of it onto vanilla ice cream. Weird, I know, but I think it would be yummy!).

This stuff's definitely in my summer repertoire from here on out!