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Stuffed Tomatoes

Stuffed tomatoes filled with a savory meat and breadcrumb mixture, baked until tender.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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

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 the tomatoes

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

  2. Cut a thin slice from the top of each tomato and remove the inside with a teaspoon.

Make the filling

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter and sauté the chopped onion for 1 minute.

  2. Add the chopped meat, season with salt, cayenne pepper, parsley, and sugar.

  3. Stir in the tomato pulp and bread crumbs, cooking until smooth.

Bake and serve

  1. Fill the tomatoes with the mixture and place them in a baking dish.

  2. Bake for 20 minutes.

  3. Dot the tops of the tomatoes with butter and serve with the pan sauce, adding a dash of Worcestershire sauce.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  4. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 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
Hold the filling as a soft shell and release juices that form the pan sauce.
Chopped meat
Provides the savory body and protein of the filling.
Soft bread crumbs
Absorb tomato juice and thicken the filling so it holds its shape.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavor and browns the tops.

The step that matters

Remove the inside of the tomatoes without piercing the shell. The tomato shell must stay intact to hold the filling. A broken wall lets filling and juice leak into the baking dish, leaving the tomato dry and the filling loose.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Celeryfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

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