Name: Tomatoes Stuffed
Ingredients: 6 tomatoes; 1 lb veal forcemeat; 1 oz cheese; 6 pieces fried bread

Why it works: Cheese and bread 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 ↓

Tomatoes Stuffed

Ingredients

6 tomatoes
1 lb veal forcemeat
1 oz cheese
6 pieces fried bread

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

Choose tomatoes of a good color and similar size; scoop out the center.
Grate the cheese and mix it with the forcemeat.
Stuff the mixture into the tomatoes.

Bake and serve

Place the tomatoes on a buttered baking tray and bake at 400°F (200°C) for 10 minutes.
Serve each tomato on a round of fried bread.

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.

Cheese + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,130 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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).
Veal + breadtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,056 recipes

Shared aroma: cis-3-hexenol (green, grassy).
Tomato + vealtop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together709 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

Tomatoes: Hold the stuffing and soften as they bake, adding moisture and a fresh, acidic flavor.
Veal forcemeat: Forms the main filling, giving the tomatoes a rich, savory body once cooked.
Cheese: Melts into the forcemeat, adding richness and savory flavor and helping browning.
Fried bread: Provides a crisp, fat-rich base that soaks up juices from the baked tomato.

“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.