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Baked Tomatoes

Baked tomatoes stuffed with a corn, tomato, and green pepper mixture, topped with bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and corn match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,099 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Baked Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Cut the tops off the tomatoes and remove the seeds and pulp without breaking the hull.

  2. Boil fresh corn until tender, then cut it off the cob.

  3. In a bowl, combine 1 cup of corn with 2 cups of chopped tomatoes and 1 chopped green pepper.

Make the filling

  1. Stew the mixture in butter until tender, then season with salt and pepper.

  2. Stuff the tomato hulls with the corn and tomato mixture.

Bake

  1. Sprinkle bread crumbs over the top and bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until browned.

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 + corntop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,099 recipes

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

  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. Corn + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,324 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Provide the hollow shells that hold the filling and release juice that moistens the stuffing as it cooks.
Fresh corn
Adds sweetness and a tender, juicy bite to the filling.
Green pepper
Adds a fresh, slightly bitter, vegetal flavour that balances the sweet corn.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavour as the vegetables stew until tender.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden topping that browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Remove the seeds and pulp without breaking the hull. The tomato shell must stay intact to hold the filling. Its walls are thin, so careless scooping can tear them and let the filling leak out during baking.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against corn, pepper, butter, 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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