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Stuffed Tomatoes with Mushrooms

A baked dish of tomatoes filled with sautéed mushrooms, breadcrumbs, parsley, butter, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Stuffed Tomatoes with Mushrooms

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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Hollow out tomatoes and set aside the insides.

Make the filling

  1. Sauté chopped mushrooms in butter until soft.

  2. Mix the sautéed mushrooms with breadcrumbs, chopped parsley, salt, and pepper.

Stuff and bake

  1. Stuff the mixture into the hollowed tomatoes.

  2. Place the stuffed tomatoes in a baking dish and bake for 20-25 minutes until tender.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Tomato + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,719 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

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

  5. Tomato + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,398 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Form the hollow shells that hold the filling and soften as they bake.
Mushrooms
Add moisture and savory, earthy flavor to the filling once sautéed.
Butter
Carries the mushrooms' flavor and helps them brown and soften in the pan.
Breadcrumbs
Absorb moisture from the mushrooms and give the filling a light, binding texture.

The step that matters

Bake until tender. Tomatoes need enough time in the oven to soften through without collapsing. Checking for tenderness ensures the shells cook fully while the filling heats through.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mushroom, butter, pepper, parsley):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, butter, pepper, parsley. 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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