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Stuffed Tomatos, Baked

A baked dish of tomatoes filled with a crumbly onion and bread mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 Tomatos, Baked

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

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

  2. Scoop out a small place at the top of each tomato without peeling them.

Make the stuffing

  1. In a pan, fry the minced onion in a little butter until soft.

  2. Add the bread crumbs moistened with a little water, cayenne pepper, and salt to the onions.

Fill and bake

  1. Fill the cavities of the tomatoes with the stuffing, allowing it to project half an inch above the top.

  2. Smooth the stuffing over the top of each tomato.

  3. Bake in the preheated oven until the tomatoes are 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. 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. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  4. Tomato + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,013 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 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

Large tomatoes
Hollowed to hold the stuffing, and softened by baking until tender.
Bread crumbs
Form the bulk of the stuffing and soak up moisture from the onion and water.
Onion
Softened in butter to add savory sweetness and aroma to the stuffing.
Butter
Fat that softens the onion and carries its flavor into the stuffing.

The step that matters

Fill and bake. Moisten the bread crumbs only lightly so the stuffing holds its shape without turning soggy. Too much water makes the filling slump and can make the tomatoes release excess liquid during baking.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Carrotfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, bread, pepper, butter. 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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