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Tomatoes Stuffed with Brains

Tomatoes filled with a butter, flour, cream, cayenne, and chopped brains mixture, topped with breadcrumbs and baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Tomatoes Stuffed with Brains

Oven, in the book's wordsA brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a brisk oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Remove the core and seeds from the tomatoes and season the insides with salt and pepper.

Make the filling

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter and flour together until hot and smooth.

  2. Add the cream, cayenne, and chopped brains to the saucepan, mixing well.

Bake and serve

  1. Stuff the tomatoes with the brain mixture and top with bread crumbs.

  2. Bake for 15 minutes.

  3. Serve the tomatoes on rounds of fried bread, garnished with watercress or parsley.

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

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

  2. Flour + watercresstop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together340 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,013 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Brains
Provide the savory, meaty body of the filling.
Butter and flour
Form a roux that thickens the filling so it holds together.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, loosening the filling into a spoonable mixture.
Tomatoes
Act as edible cups that soften and release juice as they bake.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, browned topping as the tomatoes bake.

The step that matters

Cooking the butter and flour until smooth. Heating butter and flour together cooks out the raw floury taste and forms a roux. Stirring keeps it free of lumps so the cream blends in evenly without floury pockets.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, butter, flour, cream, bread, watercress):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, butter, flour, cream, bread, watercress. 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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