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Baked Tomatoes

Baked tomatoes filled with ham, mushrooms, and breadcrumbs, topped with parsley and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Baked Tomatoes

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Cut a slice off the stem ends of the tomatoes and scoop out the seeds.

Fill and bake

  1. In a bowl, mix the ham, mushrooms, bread crumbs, parsley, salt, cayenne, and melted butter.

  2. Fill the tomatoes with the mixture, heaping it in the center.

  3. Sprinkle bread crumbs over the tops of the tomatoes.

  4. Place the tomatoes in a granite baking pan and baste with melted butter.

  5. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for 40 to 50 minutes, then serve.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Tomato + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,719 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Hollowed shells that hold the filling and soften as they bake.
Stale bread crumbs
Absorb moisture from the filling and form a lightly browned crust on top.
Melted butter
Carries flavor and promotes browning on the filling and tomato tops.
Cold-boiled ham
Adds savory, salty flavor and chewy texture to the filling.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavor and moisture to the filling as they cook.

The step that matters

Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for 40 to 50 minutes. Baking long enough lets the tomatoes soften and the filling heat through, while the bread crumbs brown without drying out the tomato walls.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, mushroom, bread, parsley, pepper, butter):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits about as well
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, mushroom, bread, parsley, pepper, 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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