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Tomatoes Stuffed with Chicken Livers

Tomatoes stuffed with a mixture of boiled chicken livers, bread crumbs, herbs, and spices, then baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and olive are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,539 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Tomatoes Stuffed with Chicken Livers

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Cut off the tops of the tomatoes and remove the insides with a spoon.

Make the filling

  1. Boil the chicken livers, then chop them along with the bread crumbs.

  2. In a bowl, combine the chopped bread, livers, salt, pepper, onion, parsley, butter, and nutmeg.

  3. Fry the mixture in olive oil, then stuff it back into the tomato shells.

Bake and serve

  1. Dust the tops with bread crumbs and bake for 10 minutes at 400°F (200°C).

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. Tomato + olivetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,539 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Tomato + chickentop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,031 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken livers
Provide the rich, savory body of the filling and set firmly when cooked.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and bind the filling so it holds its shape in the tomato.
Tomatoes
Act as edible shells that hold the filling and soften as they bake.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the filling taste mellow and smooth.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and depth of flavor to the filling.

The step that matters

Frying the filling in olive oil. Frying drives off excess moisture and browns the mixture, so the stuffing stays thick rather than making the tomato shells watery during baking.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, chicken, liver, bread, butter, olive, 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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