Tomato Cobbler with Extra Corny Topping

There really was no way to resist making this tonight since I had all the ingredients on hand and I am always looking for new ways to use Jersey tomatoes this time of year.

I was only cooking for two so I made a 1/3 version of this recipe and cooked it for about 45 minutes. If I make it a second or third time, I will again use 1/3 the number of tomatoes but make a 1/4 recipe of the cobbler topping as my tomatoes were a little overwhelmed by the amount of dough. But the flavors (corn and tomato so what's not to like?) were really good. Next time I would probably add some fresh thyme to the tomatoes.

Served with an herb-rubbed grilled pork chop from Fine Cooking and it was a good menu pairing.

Amazing flavor - the taste of summer on your fork - and better than any sweet cobbler I've ever tasted. And it turns out to be one of Mark Bittman's favorite recipes, too.

It didn't hurt that we have a great tomato crop, and could use peak ripeness tomatoes (mostly romas, some other heirloom varieties thrown in for fun). The tomatoes are quartered, and tossed with some corn starch, salt, and pepper. Larger tomatoes were cut into smaller pieces. I used a healthy dose of pepper, and am glad. I also was worried that it might be bland, and so added about 1/4 C fresh basil. It probably would have been just as good without.

The topping was easily prepared in a food processor. Flour, corn meal, butter, baking powder, b. soda, salt, an egg, and buttermilk. The instructions say it should come together as a ball, and if it doesn't, to add more flour. Ours didn't, we added another 1T flour, and it was still in a wet mess on the bottom of the food processor. We just went ahead, and it turned out great.

Like most recipes in this cookbook, there are many variations. Because we had fresh sweetcorn, I made the variation where you mix fresh corn with the cornmeal. It amped up the corn is a very good way.

I would gladly eat this most every day of tomato season.