Tomato ladybirds

A recipe from cooking-ez.com

For 6 tomatoes, you will need:

• 1 6 tomatoes
• 2 fine (or table) salt
• 3 200 g peas
• 4 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 5 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 6 2 radishes
• 7 3 tablespoons mayonnaise
• 8 50 g tuna in oil
• 9 50 g cooked rice
• 10 1 bunch chives
• 11 10 blacks olives
• 12 salt
• 13 pepper
• Total weight: 1,135 grams

Times:

Preparation	Cooking	Start to finish
1 hour 40 min.	10 min.	1 hour 50 min.

Step by step recipe

1	Peel 6 tomatoes. Cut across the stalk end to form a flat base, leaving the largest possible dome.
2	Remove flesh inside tomatoes with a teaspoon or a pommes parisiennes spoon (easier), and keep all that you remove.
3	Salt inside tomatoes, and leve upside down on a tray. Set aside.
4	Dispcard tomato seeds, keeping the flesh and cut off pieces (minus hard green stalk end), chop roughly, salt and leave to stand in a strainer.
5	Boil a pan of salted water, put in 200 g peas and cook until soft (2 or 3 minutes usually). Remove from pan, drain and put into cold water. Drain again when peas are cold, then dry.
6	Blend peas, and if possible pass through a fine strainer to remove skins and get a very smooth puree.
7	Mix 3 tablespoons olive oil and 1 tablespoon lemon juice. Add 2 tbs of this mix to the pea puree, salt, pepper, and keep covered in the fridge.
8	Prepare stuffing: cut 2 radishes into very small pieces, put in a bowl, add 3 tablespoons mayonnaise, 50 g tuna in oil, 50 g cooked rice, 1 bunch chives chopped, and the chopped tomato flesh. Mix well.
9	Fill tomatoes with this mix.
10	Place a tomato upside down on a serving plate, coat with remaining olive oil-lemon juice mix.
11	With a very sharp knife, cut out tiny circles of olive, as thin as possible.
12	Stick olive circles on tomato to get the ladybird effect. Tip: position them with the point of a knife. Make the head with 1/2 olive and 2 blades of chives, then surround with pea puree. Do this with all your tomatoes, and serve without delay.
13	For adults you could make a quicker version without olives.

Remarks

With this recipe you will become a god or goddess of cooking for your young children or grand-children. After this they will frequently ask you to make ladybird tomatoes again... To make it a real surprise, close the kitchen door if possible while you cook, and then see their eyes open wide when you put the plates on the table.
To cook rice, use the pilaf method or rice-cooker.

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