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Baked Tomatoes

Baked tomatoes stuffed with parsley, butter, breadcrumbs, onion, egg yolks, and tomato, then baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

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

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

  2. Cut a round piece from the top of each tomato and scoop out the soft parts and seeds.

Stuff and bake

  1. In a bowl, mix the parsley, butter, bread crumbs, grated onion, egg yolks, chopped tomato, salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

  2. Fill each tomato with the stuffing and replace the tops.

  3. Place the tomatoes closely together in a buttered baking dish and sprinkle with additional bread crumbs.

  4. Bake for 15 to 20 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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  3. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 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

Egg yolks
Bind the stuffing and help it set into a soft, cohesive filling when baked.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the butter and juices to give the stuffing body, and brown on top.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the stuffing and helps the crumbs brown.
Large firm tomatoes
Act as the edible cups that hold the stuffing and soften as they bake.

The step that matters

Scooping out the tomatoes. Cutting the tops and removing the soft pulp and seeds leaves a sturdy shell. Scooping too deeply can puncture the walls, so the stuffing may leak during baking.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, parsley, butter, bread, egg, pepper, nutmeg. 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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