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Ripe Tomato Dolma

A stuffed tomato filled with rice, meat, celery, dill, and butter, simmered until tender.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and dill match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 382 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Ripe Tomato Dolma

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the tomatoes in half and remove the seeds and pulp.

Fill and stew

  1. In a bowl, mix the rice, chopped meat, pepper, salt, celery, and dill or caraway leaves.

  2. Fill the tomato halves with the mixture and replace the tops, securing them with splinters.

  3. Place the stuffed tomatoes in a pot and cover with water.

  4. Stew for 30 to 45 minutes, adding the butter before serving.

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. Celery + dilltop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together382 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Pepper + dilltop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,630 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Tomato + ricetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,065 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Firm ripe tomatoes
Form the shell that holds the filling and softens as it stews.
Uncooked rice
Absorbs liquid and swells, giving the filling body and bulk.
Cold roast meat
Adds savory richness and substance to the rice filling.
Butter
Adds fat for a rounder, richer flavor at the end.

The step that matters

Stew for 30 to 45 minutes. Stewing too briefly leaves the raw rice undercooked, while overcooking can turn the tomato shells mushy and collapse the filling. Keeping the pot at a gentle simmer cooks the rice through while the tomatoes hold their shape.

Swap the dill

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Dillthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, rice, meat, pepper, celery, 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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