Why it works: Onion and chive match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,907 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓
Stuffed Tomatoes, Turkish Style
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 filling
Prepare the tomatoes by removing the tops and scooping out the insides.
Cook the rice in chicken broth until dry.
Finely chop the onion and lightly fry it in butter.
Add the chopped tomatoes to the onion and cook until the moisture is reduced.
Stir in the tomato sauce and cooked rice, then season with salt, pepper, and chives or parsley.
Mix everything well and stuff the tomatoes with the mixture.
Bake and serve
Sprinkle fresh bread crumbs on top of the stuffed tomatoes and place a small piece of butter on each.
Arrange the tomatoes in a buttered baking pan and bake at 350°F (175°C) until heated through.
Serve with additional tomato sauce.
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.
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Onion + chivetop 3% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together1,907 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Tomato + ricetop 6% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together3,065 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
-
Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together17,923 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together20,633 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
- Tomatoes
- Hold the filling and, once cooked down, add moisture and a sweet, acidic flavour.
- Rice
- Absorbs liquid and gives the filling body and a soft, bulky texture.
- Onion
- Softened in butter, it adds sweetness and savoury aroma to the filling.
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat, helping the top brown and the filling taste rounded.
- Tomato sauce
- Adds concentrated tomato flavour and moisture to the filling and serving sauce.
- Fresh bread crumbs
- Form a topping that helps the surface brown and gives a light crisp contrast.
The step that matters
Reduce the moisture in the tomato and onion mixture. Cooking the chopped tomatoes until their moisture is reduced concentrates flavour and keeps the filling thick. If it stays wet, the rice and filling turn soggy and the stuffed tomatoes can collapse or weep liquid during baking.
Swap the chive
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, rice, onion, butter, sauce, pepper, bread):
- Capsicumfits better
- Potatofits better
- Okrafits about as well
- Chivethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, rice, onion, butter, sauce, pepper, bread. 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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