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Stuffed Tomatoes

Stuffed tomatoes filled with a mixture of tomato pulp, cracker crumbs, onion, and butter, baked until browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

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. Cut a thin slice from the stem end of each tomato and remove the ends and top pulp.

  2. Mix the pulp with an equal amount of cracker crumbs, seasoning to taste with salt, pepper, and sugar.

  3. Chop the onion very finely, using about 1 teaspoon for every 6 tomatoes.

Stuff and bake

  1. Fill the cavity of each tomato with the mixture, heaping it in the center.

  2. Sprinkle a little cracker dust on top and dot with bits of butter.

  3. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 45 minutes, or until brown.

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

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

  2. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Large smooth tomatoes
Hold the filling and provide the juicy, tender body of the dish.
Cracker crumbs
Absorb tomato juice and bind the pulp into a spoonable, stuffing-like filling.
Butter
Adds fat and richness and helps the top brown during baking.
Onion
Adds savory aromatic flavor to the filling.

The step that matters

Bake until brown. Baking long enough lets the tomato soften and the top brown properly, while excess juice cooks off so the filling does not turn watery.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, pepper, sugar, butter):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, pepper, sugar, butter. 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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