Stuffed Tomatoes with Dulse and Chinese Vermicelli (serves 3-4)

What do you do when you have too many tomatoes from the garden?  Here is a stuffed tomato recipe that is popular in my family.  We all love them and everyone of us has a different recipe for them.  I make a different version each time I make them.  Here I added dulse (sea vegetable) to give a nice flavor of the ocean. My husband loves these stuffed tomatoes.  Inge, my next door neighbor enjoyed these as well!  I want to thank our family friends, Cô Vân and her husband for these sweet tomatoes from their bounty garden!

Stuffed Tomatoes with Dulse and Chinese Vermicelli (serves 3-4)

Ingredients:

1 lb lean ground pork
6 medium tomatoes, cut in half, scoop out the inside, discard seeds and reserve
1 1/2 lbs chopped tomatoes (including the scooped out parts of the 6 medium tomatoes)
3 1/4 oz Chinese vermicelli, soaked in hot water until softened, cut into 2-3 inch lengths
3/8 oz chopped scallions plus 1/8 oz
3/4 oz lightly packed dried dulse, shredded into 0.5 to 1-inch pieces
1 egg white
1 garlic cloves, minced
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
1/4 tsp sugar
1 tsp mirin (Japanese rice wine)
1 tsp plus 2 Tbsp oyster sauce
1 tsp soy sauce
2 Tbsp canola oil
1 Tbsp cornstarch mix in 1 T cold water

Method:

1) In a medium size bowl, mix together pork, Chinese vermicelli, 3/8 oz scallions, dulse, egg white, garlic, salt, pepper, sugar, mirin, 1 teaspoon oyster sauce, and soy sauce.
2) Stuff each of the 12 tomato halves with the stuffing.
3) Heat oil in a large pan over medium high heat.
4) Add stuffed tomatoes (meat facing down) onto the pan, cover pan 3/4 of the way to prevent oil from spattering, cook for 4 minutes.
5) Flip the tomatoes over, cover pan 3/4 of the way, cook the other side for 4 minutes.
6) Flip the tomatoes over onto the meat side, add the 1 1/2 lbs of chopped tomatoes and 1/8 oz scallions to the pan, cook for 20 minutes.
7) Stir in 2 tablespoons oyster sauce and cook for 1 minute.
8) Stir in cornstarch mixture in the pan and cook for 1 more minute.
9) Serve with rice.

making the stuffing

all stuffed up!

adding diced tomatoes and scallions
to make the sauce

cooking the sauce down further

thickening the sauce with cornstarch mixture

dried dulse

*Depending on the size of your tomatoes, if you have left over stuffing then you can form little meatballs and put them in the pan to cook!  Normally I would add fish sauce to this dish but I recently ran out.  I can already hear some of my friends asking me, "what kind of cook would run out of fish sauce?!!"  : D
*Chinese vermicelli is also called cellophane noodles, bean thread noodles or glass noodles. They are not the same as rice noodles.  
*To purchase dulse and other sea vegetables you may contact Mr. Larch Hanson at
http://www.theseaweedman.com