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Stuffed Tomatoes

A baked dish of tomatoes filled with a mixture of bread crumbs, cold meats, butter, spices, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Stuffed Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Cut off the stem end of the tomatoes and remove the pulp and seeds, leaving the walls intact.

  3. Sprinkle a pinch of salt and sugar inside each tomato.

Make the filling

  1. In a bowl, mix the bread crumbs, cold chicken, cold ham, melted butter, pepper, salt, mustard, some tomato pulp, chopped egg yolks, minced onion, cloves, and allspice until moist but not too soft.

Stuff and bake

  1. Stuff the tomatoes with the mixture.

  2. Place the stuffed tomatoes close together in a baking dish.

  3. Pour a little melted butter over each tomato.

  4. Sprinkle lightly with bread crumbs.

  5. Bake for 30 minutes.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Bread + hamtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  4. Tomato + chickentop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,031 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Ripe tomatoes
Form the edible shell that holds the filling and softens as it bakes.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the filling body so it holds its shape.
Cold chicken
Provides the savoury meat base of the filling.
Cold ham
Adds salty, savoury flavour and body to the filling.
Melted butter
Adds fat for richness and helps the topping brown in the oven.
Hard boiled egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the filling together.

The step that matters

Mixing the filling until moist but not too soft. Too much liquid or overworking makes the filling loose and soggy, so it runs out of the tomatoes and the shells collapse. The mixture should be moist enough to hold together but still firm enough to keep its shape.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, bread, chicken, ham, butter, pepper, egg):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, bread, chicken, ham, butter, pepper, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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