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Stuffed Tomatoes

A tomato filled with browned minced meat, onion, and optional green chili, then fried or baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Stuffed Tomatoes

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Cut a small slice off the top of each tomato without breaking the inside.

Make the filling

  1. In a pan, brown the onion, minced meat, the insides of the tomatoes, salt, and pepper.

  2. Add the minced green chili if desired and cook until the moisture is absorbed.

Stuff and cook

  1. Fill each tomato with the cooked mixture and cover with the sliced tops.

  2. Fry in ghee or bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) without turning.

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

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

  2. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Meat + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,364 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Meat + tomatotop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,438 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Minced meat
Provides the main filling body and savory flavor once browned.
Tomatoes
Form the edible shell and release moisture that the filling absorbs during cooking.
Onion
Softens and browns in the pan, adding sweetness and aroma to the filling.
Ghee
Adds fat and richness and helps the tomatoes brown when fried.

The step that matters

Cooking the filling until the moisture is absorbed. If the filling stays wet, it will leak out of the tomatoes and make them soggy during frying or baking. Cooking it down concentrates the flavor and keeps the stuffing firm enough to hold inside the shell.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, tomato, ghee, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Carrotfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, tomato, ghee, pepper. 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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