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Timbale Moulds

A tomato dish where tomatoes are stuffed with eggs, herbs, breadcrumbs, onions, and garlic, then stewed.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Tarragon and chervil match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 824 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Timbale Moulds

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Arrange the tomatoes in a shallow copper dish to see how many fit closely together.

  2. Remove each tomato, cut off one-third of the top, and place them face down on a plate with a pinch of salt for 3 hours to exude acidic juice.

Fill and stew

  1. After 3 hours, place the tomatoes back in the dish with 2 teaspoons of oil at the bottom.

  2. Fill each tomato with the stuffing made from chopped hard-boiled eggs, tarragon, chervil, breadcrumbs, cooked onions, and garlic.

  3. Cover the dish and place it on a charcoal fire, covered with ashes, and let it stew gently for 2 to 2.5 hours.

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. Tarragon + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together824 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Tomato + garlictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,076 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  4. Tomato + tarragontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together391 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Chervil + garlictop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together271 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Form the shell that holds the stuffing and softens into a juicy base as it stews.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add rich body and a firm, crumbly texture to the stuffing.
Sifted breadcrumbs
Bind the stuffing and absorb moisture so it holds its shape.
Cooked onions
Add savory sweetness and moisture to the stuffing.

The step that matters

Draining the tomatoes for 3 hours. Salting and draining the cut tomatoes pulls out acidic juice and excess water. This keeps the stuffing from becoming watery and helps the tomato walls hold their shape during the long gentle stew.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, egg, tarragon, chervil, garlic):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, egg, tarragon, chervil, garlic. 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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