Vietnamese Stuffed Tomato

The traditional name is Ca Chua Nhoi Thit.  I followed the recipe for the most part but substituted ground turkey for the ground pork.  I also use crimini mushrooms.  This turned out awesome.  I have to say because I generally get a “this is good” from my wife.  She was quite enthusiastic in her praise and went back for seconds.  She never goes back for seconds.

This dish looks really nice when you serve it too so plan to use this recipe for entertaining.

Recipe

Vietnamese Stuffed Tomatoes:

Ingredients:

• 1 lb ground turkey
• 1 tsp fish sauce
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1 tsp ground black pepper
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 diced shallots
• 1/4 cup of crimini mushrooms
• 1/2 cup of bean threads
• 2 large ripe tomatoes
• 1 can of tomato sauce
• 1 green onion 
• 3 cloves minced garlic
• 1/4 cup of shredded cheddar and monterey jack cheese

Directions:

In a small bowl, put the mushrooms and the bean thread in hot water and let soak for 10 minutes. Slice the tomatoes in half and core out the center reserving the core.  Meanwhile, in a large mixing bowl, mix together the ground turkey with the fish sauce, sugar, pepper, salt, shallots and drained mushrooms and bean threads. Form into four balls and stuff into the tomatoes.  Stuff just to the top.

In a skillet, heat 2 – 3 tbsp olive oil with the 3 cloves of garlic and then add the stuffed tomatoes meat side down.  Add the cored tomatoes, the can of tomato sauce and cover to cook for about 5 minutes.  Then take the top off and flip the tomatoes.  I added some extra mushrooms and the scallion here and added a splash of fish sauce, salt and pepper cooking until the tomatoes were relatively tender.  This took a good 10 minutes plus.  

The one step, ingredient, I added was that I topped the stuffed tomatoes with shredded cheese and the chopped green onions (green portion).  I put these into a 325 degree oven for 2 minutes to melt the cheese and serve.