Tomato Dumplings -- The Sauce That Remembered

Mid-July and the tomatoes are ripe — all of them, suddenly, in the way tomatoes do: nothing for weeks and then everything at once, as if they had a meeting and decided to ripen simultaneously to maximize the inconvenience. I have more tomatoes than I can eat, which is the kind of problem I love, the problem of abundance, the problem that requires not solutions but recipes. I made gazpacho. I made bruschetta. I made a tomato sauce from scratch — the slow-cooked kind, simmering for hours, garlic and basil and the crushed tomatoes reducing to something thick and rich and deeply red, the color of the sauce like a stained-glass window, beautiful and edible. I froze twelve jars. The jars lined up in the freezer are a hedge against winter, a promise that August will be available in February, that the garden's generosity can be stored and revisited and eaten on a dark day when fresh tomatoes are a memory.

Marvin had a window this week. Wednesday afternoon. I was making the sauce — standing at the stove, stirring, the kitchen humid with tomato steam — and he walked in and said, "Smells like your mother's kitchen." My mother's kitchen. He remembered Sylvia's kitchen. He remembered the smell, the association, the connection between a simmering pot of tomato sauce and a small apartment on the Grand Concourse. I turned around and he was looking at me with clear eyes — the Marvin eyes, the eyes that used to crinkle at the corners when he was about to make a joke — and he said, "You look just like her." I said, "Like who?" He said, "Sylvia." He said my mother's name. He said I look like my mother. Both things are true: I do look like Sylvia, and Marvin remembered, for one Wednesday afternoon, standing in my kitchen, the woman who came before me. The window closed. He went to his chair. I stirred the sauce. I did not cry until the sauce was done, because the sauce comes first, and the crying comes after, and the order of operations is non-negotiable.

After Marvin went back to his chair and the sauce was finally done and the crying was, too, I found myself still standing at the stove with a pot full of something beautiful and nowhere particular to take it. That’s when I thought of my mother’s dumplings — the soft, pillowy kind she’d drop right into a bubbling pot of tomato sauce, the way she’d make something filling and whole out of whatever the garden gave her. Sylvia would have approved of this recipe. And on a Wednesday like that one, approval from someone who is remembered is worth everything.

Tomato Dumplings

Prep Time: 15 minutes | Cook Time: 30 minutes | Total Time: 45 minutes | Servings: 6

Ingredients

2 cans (14.5 oz each) diced tomatoes, undrained
1 can (8 oz) tomato sauce
1/2 cup finely diced onion
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon dried basil
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
Salt and black pepper to taste
For the dumplings:
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon dried parsley
3/4 cup whole milk
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

Instructions

Build the sauce. In a large, deep skillet or Dutch oven, heat olive oil over medium heat. Add the onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until softened, about 5 minutes. Add garlic and cook 1 minute more until fragrant.
Simmer the tomatoes. Stir in the diced tomatoes with their juices, tomato sauce, sugar, basil, oregano, salt, and pepper. Bring to a gentle boil, then reduce heat to medium-low and simmer uncovered for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the sauce thickens slightly.
Mix the dumpling dough. While the sauce simmers, whisk together flour, baking powder, salt, and parsley in a medium bowl. Add the milk and melted butter and stir just until a soft, shaggy dough forms. Do not overmix.
Drop the dumplings. Using a large spoon or a 1/4 cup measure, drop rounded scoops of dumpling dough directly onto the surface of the simmering tomato sauce, spacing them evenly. You should have about 8–10 dumplings.
Cover and cook. Place a tight-fitting lid on the pan and cook over medium-low heat, without lifting the lid, for 15–18 minutes, until the dumplings are cooked through and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
Serve immediately. Spoon dumplings into shallow bowls and ladle the tomato sauce generously around and over them. Finish with fresh basil if you have it.

Nutrition (per serving)

Tomato Dumplings -- The Sauce That Remembered