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Stuffed Baked Tomatoes

A tomato filled with a mixture of cracker crumbs, pepper, sea salt, butter, rice, and green pepper, then baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and rice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,065 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Stuffed Baked Tomatoes

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Cut a slice off the stem end of the tomatoes.

  2. Scoop out the center and mix it with rolled cracker crumbs, pepper, coarse sea salt, a little butter, rice, and chopped green pepper.

Fill and bake

  1. Fill the tomato shells with the mixture.

  2. Sprinkle the tops with bread crumbs.

  3. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven until heated 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.

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

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

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Tomato + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,013 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Pepper + ricetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,379 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

Tomatoes
Serve as the edible shell that holds the filling while it bakes.
Rice
Absorbs moisture from the tomato pulp and adds bulk and body to the filling.
Rolled cracker crumbs
Bind the filling and soak up juices so it holds its shape.
Bread crumbs
Form a topping that browns lightly in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat for richer flavor and a softer texture in the filling.

The step that matters

Bake until heated through. Tomatoes release water as they heat, so the filling can turn loose and soggy if the bake runs too long or the shells are overfilled. Heating only until the filling is hot keeps the tomatoes intact.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Tomatothe original
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Potatofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, butter, rice, bread. 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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