This could quite possibly be the most Southern concoction to exist. It combines cherry tomatoes, cast iron, pimento cheese, and biscuits ... oh yeah and hollering "Ya'll COME TASTE THIS!"
I picked up a big tub of those mixed cherry tomatoes on a whim at Costco last weekend because I have no self control, and they sat on the counter at the beginning of the week. I wasn't sure what to do with them just yet. Then I was thinking about cobblers after making a fig cobbler and how I've seen and even made cherry tomato cobblers before. But I also grabbed a huge tub of Palmetto Cheese from Costco too and the idea to make the biscuits pimento cheese biscuits to put on top of the cobbler. That sealed the deal and I got started to figuring out how to make this into a cohesive recipe that would turn out.
If you don't want to buy pimento cheese (but if you're going to, make it Palmetto Cheese!) and want to make your own, I have a potentially controversial suggestion. I know it sounds crazy BUT I do use Paula Deen's pimento cheese recipe when I make it myself. Just go lighter on the salt! Sure she sucks, but if you print off her recipe she will profit from it less because you won't go back and give her clicks more than the one time, if you need to justify yourself to use something bearing her name. But this isn't about her, it's about really good pimento cheese, baked into biscuits, and set atop blistered orbs of sweet Southern goodness.
Tomato Cobbler with Pimento Cheese Biscuits
Ingredients
- ½ onion diced
- 1 tbs butter
- 2 tbsp garlic minced
- ½ tsp salt
- 5-7 large basil leaves cut into ribbons
- 4 cups cherry tomatoes
- ½ cup chicken or vegetable stock
- 2 cups all purpose flour
- 2 tsp granulated sugar
- 3 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 cup whole milk
- 1 ½ cups Palmetto cheese or other pimento cheese
- 2 tbsp butter melted
Instructions
- Melt the tablespoon of butter of medium heat in a cast iron skillet. (See note below if not using cast iron). Add in the onion and cook for 5 minutes.
- Add the garlic and cook for another minute. Then add the salt and basil and stir together to mix.
- Arrange the cherry tomatoes on top of the mixture in the skillet so they are in a single layer as much as possible. Do not overfill the skillet with tomatoes, if your cast iron won't accommodate 4 cups of tomatoes, don't use them all. Let the tomatoes cook for 10 minutes, stirring to let them blister evenly.
- While this is cooking, turn the oven on to 375 and begin to make the biscuit dough.
- Use a sturdy wooden spoon to mix together the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt until well combined.
- Slowly pour the milk in, stirring until just combined.
- Add in the pimento cheese and stir until well-incorporated without over mixing. Set the dough aside.
- Pour in the ½ cup of stock and continue simmering for about 10 minutes or until there's only about a fourth of the cooking liquid left.
- Remove the cast iron from the heat and use the wooden spoon and your fingers to drop even chunks of dough atop the tomato mixture. Aim for 6-7, but don't completely cover the top like it's a pie crust.
- Put the full cast iron skillet in the oven and make for 25 minutes.
- Remove from the oven and brush the melted butter over the baked biscuits. Put back in oven for 5 minutes, or turn on the broiler and leave it in for 2-3 minutes or until the tops of the biscuits are golden brown.
Notes
Be warned, this is blistering hot straight out of the oven! Let those boiling little tomatoes cool a bit before biting in what feels like straight up lava. It's going to be a true challenge though, because this recipe smells so good when baking it can draw people in from the outside to see what's cooking.
Heat up any leftovers you may have in a convection oven if possible to re-crisp up those biscuits.