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Tomato Cups

Tomato Cups are tomatoes hollowed and filled with a salad mixture, served on lettuce leaves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,409 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Tomato Cups

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Scald the tomatoes, let them cool, and peel them.

  2. Cut off the tops and remove the insides, reserving them for filling.

Make the filling

  1. Chop the onion, cucumber, and reserved tomato insides, discarding the seeds.

  2. Mix the chopped ingredients with salad dressing.

Assemble and serve

  1. Fill the centers of the tomatoes with the mixture.

  2. 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. Cucumber + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,409 recipes

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

  2. Tomato + cucumbertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,405 recipes

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

  3. Tomato + lettucetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,655 recipes

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

  4. Onion + lettucetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,562 recipes

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

  5. Onion + cucumbertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,050 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
Serve as the hollow shell that holds the filling.
Onion
Adds sharp, pungent flavour to the chopped filling.
Cucumber
Adds cool, crisp texture and moisture to the filling.
Salad dressing
Binds the chopped vegetables together and adds seasoning and moisture.

The step that matters

Scald, cool, and peel the tomatoes. Scalding loosens the skins so they slip off cleanly. Letting the tomatoes cool before handling prevents them from cooking further or tearing, keeping the cups intact to hold the filling.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, cucumber, lettuce):

  1. Beetrootfits better
  2. Eggplantfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, cucumber, lettuce. 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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