Name: Savoury Tomatoes
Ingredients: 3 large tomatoes; ½ cup bread crumbs; ¼ cup grated cheese; ½ cup cream; ¼ teaspoon salt; ¼ teaspoon pepper; ½ teaspoon sugar

Why it works: Bread and cheese are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,130 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Savoury Tomatoes

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

Cut the tomatoes in half and remove the insides.

Fill and bake

Mix the insides with bread crumbs, grated cheese, cream, salt, pepper, and sugar.
Fill the tomato halves with the mixture.
Brown in a 400°F (200°C) oven.

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.

Bread + cheesetop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,130 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,923 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Tomato + breadtop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,013 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Tomato + cheesetop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,896 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: Form the shell that holds the filling and softens as it bakes.
Bread crumbs: Absorb the cream and give the filling body so it holds its shape.
Grated cheese: Melts into the filling and browns on top in the oven.
Cream: Adds moisture and richness so the filling stays soft rather than dry.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, cheese, cream, pepper, sugar):

Capsicumfits better
Mustardfits about as well
Potatofits about as well
Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, cheese, cream, pepper, sugar. 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.