Tomatoes Stuffed with Barley, Cilantro and Almonds

"A variation on the classic greek recipe for Yemista (which I have already posted). I like this one because I really like barley. This really tastes best at room temperature, or close to it, so take that into consideration if making to allow time to cool."
 
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Ready In:
1hr 55mins
Ingredients:
11
Serves:
6-8
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ingredients

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directions

  • Cut a lid off the top of the tomatoes and empty tomatoes of their pulp.
  • Keep 2 ½ cups of the tomato flesh and pulp it (you may freeze the rest for future use, or puree to use in a sauce in the next day or two).
  • Preheat oven to 360 degrees F.
  • In a deep frying-pan, heat half the oil and saute the onion until soft, about 8-10 minutes.
  • Add cilantro and pearl barley and saute, stirring occasionally for 1 minute.
  • Add 2 cups of the tomato pulp and simmer for 5 minutes.
  • Remove from heat and stir in almonds and herbs.
  • Season to taste, and stuff tomatoes with this mixture, distributing equally.
  • Replace lids on tomatoes.
  • Put tomatoes in a baking pan large enough to contain them all fairly snugly and fill the gaps with wedges of potato.
  • Puree remaining tomato with ½ cup oil and ½ cup water.
  • Season to taste.
  • Pour this over the tomatoes.
  • Bake for 1 hour and 10 minutes.
  • Turn off oven and leave tomatoes in oven 15 minutes longer.
  • Remove from oven and allow to come to room temperature before serving (they are best that way).
  • Serve with feta cheese and crusty bread.

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Reviews

  1. I check, wash, and cook up a kilo of barley at at time for easy use in recipes, freezing 2 cup baggies. My kids generally love any barley based soup, but I wanted to try some other dishes with barley. This one looked great. I was out of fresh dill, spearmint, and parsely, so I used dried at about 1/4 the amount. I used fresh cilantro as in the recipe. I had a little extra room in the baking pan, so I added some whole potatoes (also since I wasn't sure the kids would like the tomatoes). Everything came out very tasty, but indeed the kids didn't like the stuffed tomatoes. More for hubby and me! I used the extra sauce on freshly steamed brown rice for the kids instead. Someday they'll grow up and like this recipe, too.
     
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RECIPE SUBMITTED BY

<style>body { background: url("http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3639/3512121819_f2f1aaf050.jpg?v=0"); background-repeat: repeat-y; }</style> OK, here goes. I live in Athens, Greece. I moved out here many, many years ago from Ottawa, Canada - so I am blessed in having two wonderful heritages! I suffer from compulsive obsessive behaviour with regard to food and my psychiatrist thought it would be a good idea to find a 'society' where many have the same problem and try to find a cure. So far, I've copied a couple of thousand recipes from this site and my psychiatrist has thrown the towel in and refuses to answer the phone when I call. What did I do wrong? Got 3 kids that keep me on the go - 10 and under at this point (2008) - I may not get round to updating this for a few years, so you'll have to do your own maths. I teach English full-time and Greek Cookery part-time. I would like to make the cooking part of it full-time and the English Grammar part of it part-time. That's all for now.
 
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