Little did I know growing up that when my family made what we called “tomato rice,” we were actually fixing a dish with a long history. I just knew that my father ate it as a child, and it was simple to make by mixing some tomato sauce into the rice pot, along with water and salt before cooking. Sometimes we also added a box of defrosted frozen spinach if my mother or I had remembered to take it out the freezer in advance.
This beloved and seemingly simple dish, like so much food, has a complex history. The Moors introduced rice to Spain in the 8th century, making it part of the cuisine that the Jews shared. In the early 16th century, conquistadores brought the tomato back from the New World to Spain. From there it spread eastward across Europe, reaching the Ottoman Empire and beyond, although when is disputed, ranging from the 16th to the 19th century.
Since all the modern countries that were part of the Ottoman Empire — including Turkey, Greece and the rest of the Balkans, Lebanon, Iran and Italy – have some form of rice with tomato as part of their cuisine, I’m with those that say the tomato traveled eastward from Spain with the conversos or secret Jews who fled Spain in the 16th and 17th centuries. In fact, when the tomato reached Italy later in the 16th century, one name for it was “the Jew’s apple.”
So it’s no wonder that tomato rice, most often called arroz kon tomat in Ladino, is very much a part of Sephardic cuisines. Jews were welcomed into and thrived in the Ottoman Empire as they fled Spanish persecution beginning in the 14th century and in great numbers following the expulsion in 1492. Stella Cohen, writing about Jewish food from the island of Rhodes in “Stella’s Sephardic Table,” notes that “for the Sephardim in Turkey this pilaf made with ripe fresh tomatoes is also known as arrosito a la Judia (rice the Jewish way).
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There are variations, of course, from country to country and family to family. Fresh tomatoes or tomato sauce? If using fresh, are they chopped, crushed or grated? Onions or no onions? Peppers or no peppers?
Versions of the Italian recipe are made with tomato paste, sauce or crushed fresh tomatoes and might add garlic, bell peppers, fennel seeds and/or capers. A Persian version called “dami gojeh firangi” is made with diced potatoes and turmeric in addition to crushed fresh tomatoes. Turkey’s iconic dish of tomato pilaf is often made with medium or coarse bulgur instead of rice. And then there’s the recipe in Vefa Alexiadis’ “Greek Cooking Kitchen” that uses fresh tomatoes and ketchup, clearly an Americanized version.
For Aylin Edelman, who grew up in Izmir on Turkey’s western coast, it’s her favorite comfort food. Her mother uses grated fresh tomatoes cooked oil to intensify their flavor before adding the rice.
“It’s a dish that brings back childhood memories of hot summers with juicy tomatoes grown under the Aegean sun. Whenever I go back to Turkey, this is the dish I ask my mother to make.”
Ninety-year-old Paulette Nehama also has fond memories of the dish they called “summer rice” in her childhood in Volos, Greece.
“It was most often served cold or at room temperature in late spring, summer and early fall. although my family ate it year-round.”
In my family, too, tomato rice was always in season, warm in winter but cold or room temperature the rest of the year, making it perfect for summer cookouts and picnics. It’s a dish that makes me feel connected to my family’s Sephardic heritage, with both of my father’s parents coming from the Ottoman Empire.
Recently I decided to try making an updated version of the dish incorporating roasted tomatoes because I so love them, along with onions and roasted garlic. Instead of the tomato sauce of my childhood, I use tomato paste cooked a bit for richer flavor. I also added cardamom, a popular ingredient in many rice dishes, and thyme for a more complex flavor. In fact, it has so much flavor, I recommend making it with water instead of broth so you can really taste the tomatoes and other ingredients.
As good as this dish is freshly made, it is delicious leftover and will last in the refrigerator for five or six days, so make the full recipe even if you’re not serving eight people.
Arroz kon Tomat
This simple dish works year-round.
- Total Time: 1 hour 45 minutes
- Yield: Serves 6-8
Ingredients
- 1 ½ –2 lbs grape tomatoes
- 8–10 cloves garlic, unpeeled
- 1 ¼ tsp salt, divided
- 4 Tbsp olive oil, divided
- 10–12 sprigs fresh thyme or 1 tsp dried
- 2 cups long-grain rice, preferably basmati
- 1 medium onion, diced in ¼-inch pieces (about 1 cup)
- 2 Tbsp tomato paste
- 3 ½ cups water
- 1 tsp ground cardamom
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 425°F. Cover baking sheet with parchment paper. The baking sheet should be large enough to hold the tomatoes in a single layer.
- Put the tomatoes and unpeeled cloves of garlic on the baking sheet. Sprinkle with ¼ tsp salt and drizzle with 2 Tbsp oil. Use your hands to mix the tomatoes and garlic, making sure everything is coated in oil, then spread out on the parchment. Tuck sprigs of thyme around the mixture. Roast for 25-30 minutes until the tomatoes are very soft and charred a little. Set aside to cool.
- Remove extra starch from the rice by putting it in a fine mesh strainer. Set the strainer over a bowl and fill with tepid water, covering the rice with a few extra inches of water at the top. Let soak for 15-20 minutes, then rinse under cold water and set aside to drain.
- Once the tomatoes are cool, take a few minutes to peel each one, which will mostly slip easily from their skins. Discard the skins. Run your thumb and forefinger from the top to bottom of each stem of thyme to remove the leaves, letting them fall onto the peeled tomatoes. Scrape the tomatoes into a bowl with all the juices from the pan and set aside.
- Gently squeeze each clove of roasted garlic out of its skin. Mash well on a small plate and set aside.
- Heat remaining 2 Tbsp oil over medium heat in a 4- or 5-quart pot with a tight-fitting lid. Add diced onion with a couple pinches of salt and cook about 8-10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until onions are soft and translucent, but not brown.
- Add tomato paste and mashed garlic to the pot and mix together. Cook 3-4 minutes, stirring often, as the tomato paste darkens a bit in color. Be careful not to burn the mixture.
- Add the rice to the pot, stirring the mixture together very well to incorporate. Let cook another 3-4 minutes, stirring occasionally and scraping the bottom to keep from browning.
- Add water, cardamom and remaining 1 tsp of salt to the pot. Turn up the heat to bring to a boil, stir, turn the heat down to low and cover. Simmer gently for 12-14 minutes until all the water is absorbed. The rice cooking time will need to be adjusted if other kinds of rice are used.
- Remove from heat and let stand, still covered, for 10 minutes before fluffing gently with a fork. Gently stir in about 2/3 of the roasted tomatoes.
- Spoon the rice onto a rimmed platter or into a wide bowl. Add the remaining tomatoes to the top of the rice and drizzle with the pan juices. Serve hot, cold or at room temperature.
Notes
This dish keeps in the refrigerator for 5-6 days.
- Prep Time: 20 minutes + 20 minutes soaking time
- Cook Time: 1 hour 5 minutes
- Category: Side Dish
- Method: Quick
- Cuisine: Sephardi
My mother, whose parents were from Ioannina, called this Spanish rice and always served it in a Russell Wright casserole dish
My Mom added garbanzo beans. Just the thought of it makes my mouth water.
Made it for Shabbat dinner last night, loved by all! Wish I could share a picture. I used brown rice and garlic paste (added during step 7) and it came out really well.
Very interesting article and very clear recipe, thanks
Love the recipe, and the fascinating history.