Skip to main content
Main

Stuffed Tomatoes

Tomatoes filled with a beef and breadcrumb mixture, baked with gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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

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 tomatoes

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Cut a piece from the top of each tomato and remove the insides without cutting the skin.

Make the stuffing

  1. Chop the tomato pulp and mix it with a little cold beef.

  2. Add one-fourth as much bread crumbs as you have pulp and wet the mixture with beef gravy.

  3. Season with a little sugar, pepper, and coarse sea salt.

Stuff and bake

  1. Stuff the tomatoes with the mixture and replace the tops.

  2. Pack any remaining stuffing between the tomatoes and pour gravy over them.

  3. Cover and bake for 40 to 45 minutes.

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. Tomato + beeftop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,448 recipes

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

  3. Tomato + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,013 recipes

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

  4. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  5. Beef + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,032 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Large smooth tomatoes
Hollowed shells that hold the stuffing and soften as they bake.
Cold beef
Provides the meaty filling that gives the stuffing its savory body.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the tomato pulp and gravy so the stuffing holds together instead of running.
Beef gravy
Moistens the stuffing and sauce, adding savory flavor and keeping the filling from drying out.

The step that matters

Cover and bake for 40 to 45 minutes. Covering traps steam so the tomatoes cook through and the filling heats evenly, while the gravy keeps the stuffing moist rather than dry or scorched.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, bread, sugar, 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.

More stuffed tomatoes recipes

Baked 22Shrimp 6Cheese 4with Mushrooms 4Celery 3Cucumber 3 See all 305 →

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesRoast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipes