Skip to main content
Main

Italian Stuffed Tomatoes

A baked dish of tomato halves filled with a seasoned breadcrumb and ham mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Marjoram and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Italian 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. Peel the tomatoes, cut them in half, and remove the seeds.

  3. Place the tomatoes in a fireproof dish and pour olive oil over them.

Assemble and bake

  1. In a bowl, mix the bread crumbs, ham, parsley, basil, marjoram, thyme, garlic, pepper, and salt.

  2. Strew the mixture over the tomatoes to almost cover them.

  3. Drizzle salad oil over the top.

  4. Bake for a few minutes until golden 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. Marjoram + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Basil + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together688 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  3. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Parsley + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Basil + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Provide the moist, juicy base that softens and becomes tender as it bakes.
Bread crumbs
Form the crisp, absorbent topping that soaks up juices and browns in the oven.
Ham
Adds savoury, salty flavour to the stuffing mixture.
Olive oil
Adds fat that carries flavour and helps the tomatoes soften.
Garlic
Contributes pungent aroma that mellows during baking.

The step that matters

Bake for a few minutes until golden. The window is short, and the topping can burn before the tomatoes soften. Watch for golden colour rather than relying only on the stated time, since browning from bread crumbs and oil happens quickly at this temperature.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (olive, bread, ham, parsley, basil, marjoram, thyme):

  1. Carrotfits about as well
  2. Shallotfits about as well
  3. Tomatothe original
  4. Eggplantfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against olive, bread, ham, parsley, basil, marjoram, thyme. 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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipes