Skip to main content
Main

Filled Tomatoes

A dish of tomatoes filled with a mixture of cabbage, celery, nuts, eggs, and a creamy dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Celery and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Filled Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Hollow out the tomatoes and set aside.

  2. In a bowl, combine ground cabbage, celery, nut meats, and chopped hard boiled eggs.

Make the dressing

  1. In a saucepan, mix beaten eggs, sugar, salt, mustard, cream, and vinegar.

  2. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture thickens.

  3. Chill the dressing, then mix it with the vegetable and nut mixture.

Fill and serve

  1. Fill the hollowed tomatoes with the mixture and serve.

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. Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Cabbage + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,645 recipes

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

  3. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

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

  4. Cabbage + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,840 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Beaten eggs thicken as they cook, giving the dressing its body.
Cream
Adds richness and fat, softening the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that gives the dressing its tangy flavour.
Sugar
Balances the acidity of the vinegar and mustard with sweetness.
Ground cabbage
Supplies bulk and a crisp, fresh texture to the filling.

The step that matters

Cook the dressing over low heat, stirring constantly. Egg proteins set as they heat, so low heat with constant stirring thickens the dressing smoothly. Too much heat can scramble the eggs into lumps.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cabbage, celery, meat, egg, sugar, mustard, cream):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Lettucefits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, celery, meat, egg, sugar, mustard, cream. 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.

More stuffed tomatoes recipes

Baked 22Shrimp 6Cheese 4with Mushrooms 4Celery 3Cucumber 3 See all 305 →

You might also like

Meatless Tomato SoupMeatless Tomato Soup23 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipes