Skip to main content
Salad

Iced Stuffed Tomatoes

A chilled tomato dish filled with a mixed vegetable and vinaigrette filling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Tomato and olive are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,539 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Iced Stuffed Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Scald and peel the tomatoes.

  2. Cut off the stem end and scoop out the seeds.

  3. Stand the tomatoes on ice for 2 hours.

Make the filling

  1. In a bowl, mix the onion, watercress, parsley, and cucumber.

  2. In a separate bowl, combine salt, pepper, olive oil, and vinegar.

  3. Pour the dressing over the vegetable mixture and fill the tomatoes.

Serve

  1. Serve each tomato on a lettuce leaf.

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 + olivetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,539 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Watercress + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together469 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Watercress + cucumbertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together140 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  5. Tomato + cucumbertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,405 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
Form the hollow shell that holds the filling and gives the dish its juicy body.
Olive oil
Carries flavour and adds richness to the dressing, coating the vegetables.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the oil.
Cucumber
Adds crisp texture and cooling moisture to the filling.

The step that matters

Standing the tomatoes on ice for 2 hours. Chilling firms the tomato flesh and keeps the filling cold and crisp, so the tomatoes stay firm rather than watery once filled and dressed.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, watercress, parsley, cucumber, pepper, olive, vinegar):

  1. Lettucefits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, watercress, parsley, cucumber, pepper, olive, vinegar. 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.

You might also like

Tomato SaladTomato Salad179 recipesChicken SaladChicken Salad623 recipesSalad DressingSalad Dressing491 recipesCold SlawCold Slaw160 recipes