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Baked Tomatoes

Tomatoes stuffed with bread crumbs, onion, butter, pepper, and salt, baked until soft.

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 ↓

Baked Tomatoes

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Wash the tomatoes and cut them in half.

  2. Remove the pulp and seeds from each half.

Fill and tie

  1. In a bowl, mix the bread crumbs, chopped onion, butter, pepper, and salt.

  2. Fill each tomato half with the mixture and press the halves together.

  3. Tie them with a piece of thread.

Bake and serve

  1. Place them in a pan with the remaining butter and water.

  2. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven until soft.

  3. Remove the threads 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. 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

Tomatoes
Provide the body that softens and holds the bread crumb filling while baking.
Bread crumbs
Absorb juices and give the filling body so it stays inside the tomato halves.
Onion
Adds savory depth and aroma to the bread crumb filling.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the filling brown lightly in the oven.

The step that matters

Bake until soft. Tomatoes must cook long enough to soften fully, but not so long they collapse. Checking for softness keeps the halves intact while the filling heats through.

Swap the onion

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

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

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