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 ↓
Stuffed Tomatas
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 the filling
Scoop out the insides of the tomatoes without damaging their shape.
Pass the insides through a sieve.
Mix the sieved insides with grated bread, chopped herbs, nutmeg, salt, and pepper.
Stew the mixture for 10 minutes with the laurel or peach leaves.
Remove the leaves and stuff the tomatoes with the mixture.
Bake and serve
Tie a string around each tomato to maintain their shape.
Sprinkle the stuffed tomatoes with grated bread crust.
Place them in a buttered dish and bake at 400°F (200°C) until cooked.
Remove the strings and serve the stuffed tomatoes.
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.
-
Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
-
Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together13,015 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
-
Pepper + laureltop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,666 recipes
Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).
-
Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together17,923 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
-
Tomato + laureltop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,154 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Tomatoes
- Hollowed shells that hold the filling and soften into a tender, juicy base when baked.
- Grated bread
- Absorbs the tomato juices and binds the filling, giving it body rather than a runny texture.
- Sweet herbs
- Add aroma and fresh flavour to the filling.
- Nutmeg
- Adds warm, aromatic flavour that complements the tomato and herbs.
The step that matters
Stuffing without tearing the shells. Scooping the insides without damaging the tomato wall keeps the shape intact during baking. A torn or thin shell will collapse and let the filling leak out, so the tomatoes hold their form only if the walls stay whole.
Swap the nutmeg
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, bread, pepper, laurel, butter):
- Thymefits better
- Parsleyfits better
- Celeryfits better
- Nutmegthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, bread, pepper, laurel, 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.
More stuffed tomatoes recipes
You might also like
Tomato Soup526 recipes
Brown Bread461 recipes
Cream of Tomato Soup107 recipes
White Bread80 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.