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Whole Baked Tomatoes

Whole baked tomatoes stuffed with veal, ham, bread crumbs, onion, and gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Whole 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. Chop the veal finely and mix with the chopped ham and bread crumbs.

  2. Season with pepper and salt if needed.

  3. In a saucepan, heat a few spoonfuls of gravy and stir in the meat mixture and a little onion.

  4. Carefully scrape the pulp and seeds from the tomatoes and add to the mixture.

  5. When hot, add the butter and remove from heat.

Stuff and bake

  1. Hollow out the tomatoes.

  2. Place the hollowed tomatoes in a pudding dish.

  3. Fill the tomatoes with the mixture.

  4. Cover the tomatoes with their tops.

  5. Fill any gaps with remaining meat mixture.

  6. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for nearly an hour, or until soft and brown.

  7. Keep the dish covered for the first half hour.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Bread + tomatotop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,013 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

Veal
Provides the main meaty body of the stuffing.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the gravy and juices, helping the filling hold together and stay moist.
Tomatoes
Act as the edible shell, softening as they bake and releasing juices into the filling.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour through the filling and aiding browning.
Ham
Adds salty, savoury flavour to the meat mixture.

The step that matters

Keep the dish covered for the first half hour. Covering traps steam so the tomatoes soften through and the filling heats evenly before the top browns. Uncovering too early can dry the surface and leave the centre under-cooked.

Swap the onion

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

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

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