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Stuffed Baked Tomatoes

Stuffed baked tomatoes filled with a savory mixture of ham, bacon, onion, parsley, and bread crumbs, baked with butter and hot water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Stuffed Baked Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the filling

  1. Cut a thin slice from the stem of each tomato and remove the seeds and soft pulp.

  2. Chop the removed pulp and mix it with parsley, ham, bacon, onion, and bread crumbs.

  3. Fry the mixture in butter, then season with salt, pepper, and sugar.

  4. Remove from heat and stir in the egg yolks.

Stuff and bake

  1. Stuff the tomatoes with the mixture, heaping it in the center.

  2. Sprinkle with additional bread crumbs and place a small piece of butter on top of each.

  3. Arrange the tomatoes in a buttered pan.

  4. Add hot water to prevent burning.

  5. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes.

  6. Serve with brown sauce.

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

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

  2. Bread + buttertop 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. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  5. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 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
Hold the filling and soften into a juicy, tender shell as they bake.
Bread crumbs
Absorb juices and give the filling body and a light, crisp top.
Egg yolks
Bind the filling and help it set into a cohesive, sliceable mass when heated.
Butter
Adds richness and fat for flavor and gentle browning of the filling and top.
Bacon
Contributes fat and savory, smoky flavor to the filling.
Ham
Adds salty, savory meatiness to the filling.

The step that matters

Add hot water to the pan. Hot water in the pan creates steam and keeps the pan from scorching, so the tomatoes cook through gently while the bread crumb topping stays intact rather than burning.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, parsley, ham, bread, butter, pepper, sugar):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, parsley, ham, bread, butter, pepper, sugar. 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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