Name: Tomatoes a LA Creole
Ingredients: 4 large tomatoes; 1 cup cooked rice; 1/2 cup chopped peppers (seeds removed); 1/2 cup chopped ham; 2 teaspoons cayenne pepper; 1 tablespoon butter; Salt to taste

Why it works: Tomato and rice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and 2,990 recipes mention both. Both carry trans,trans-2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: milk (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

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

Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Scoop out the insides of the tomatoes.
Chop the peppers and ham, then mix with the rice.

Fill and bake

Fill the tomatoes with the rice mixture.
Dust the tops with cayenne pepper and place a small piece of butter on each.
Bake for 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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

Tomato + ricetop 3% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together2,990 recipes

Shared aroma: trans,trans-2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
Tomato + peppertop 4% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together17,913 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Rice + peppertop 6% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together8,100 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Ham + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together5,475 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
Rice + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together9,587 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-undecalactone (peach, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes: Serve as the hollow shell that holds the filling while baking.
Cooked rice: Bulks out the filling and absorbs juices as the tomatoes bake.
Ham: Adds savoury, salty flavour to the rice filling.
Butter: Adds fat and richness, helping the tops brown and flavour the filling.

“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.