Name: Stuffed Tomatoes
Ingredients: firm, large tomatoes; ground chicken; chopped celery; okra; bread crumbs; salt; pepper; onion juice; butter

Why it works: Tomato and okra work together. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 327 recipes. Both carry damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Stuffed Tomatoes

Oven, in the book's wordsA good oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Cut out the blossom end of the tomatoes and scoop out the insides without breaking the skins.
Chop the insides finely and mix with equal parts ground chicken, chopped celery, okra, and bread crumbs.
Season the mixture with salt, pepper, and a little onion juice.
Fill the tomato skins with the mixture and place a piece of butter on top of each.
Arrange the stuffed tomatoes in a buttered baking dish and bake until cooked through.

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.

Tomato + okratop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together327 recipes

Shared aroma: damascenone (apple, rose).
Okra + oniontop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together715 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,377 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together16,012 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Celery + okratop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together137 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

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

Swap the okra

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, chicken, celery, bread, pepper, onion, butter):

Capsicumfits better
Potatofits better
Carrotfits better
Okrathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, chicken, celery, bread, pepper, onion, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.