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Stuffed Tomatoes

Tomatoes filled with a mixture of bread crumbs, minced beef, onions, parsley, celery seed, butter, pepper, and salt, then baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 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

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

  2. Slice off the top of each tomato and remove the centers.

Stuff and bake

  1. In a bowl, mix bread crumbs, minced beef, chopped onions, parsley, celery seed, butter, pepper, and salt.

  2. Stuff each tomato with the mixture and replace the tops.

  3. Place the tomatoes in a pan with a little water and 2 teaspoons of butter. Bake until done.

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. Parsley + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  5. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 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
Serve as the hollow shell that holds the filling while baking.
Minced beef
Provides the main savoury filling and richness.
Bread crumbs
Absorb juices and help bind the filling so it holds its shape.
Onions
Add sweetness and aroma as they soften in the filling.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps the tomatoes brown and moisten as they bake.

The step that matters

Bake until done. The record gives no time or check for doneness, so the cook must judge it by eye. Tomatoes should be soft and the beef fully cooked through, which is best confirmed with a thermometer in the filling.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, bread, beef, parsley, celery, 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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