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Baked Tomato

A baked tomato filled with peanut butter and breadcrumbs, seasoned with sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and peanut match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 315 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Baked Tomato

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Cut a piece from the bottom of each tomato and remove the seed cavity with the flesh.

  2. Sift the removed tomato flesh to remove seeds.

Fill and bake

  1. Add 1 teaspoon of peanut butter and 1 tablespoon of breadcrumbs to each tomato.

  2. Season with coarse sea salt to taste.

  3. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until lightly browned.

Serve

  1. Serve on individual dishes on lettuce leaves.

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 + peanuttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together315 recipes

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

  2. Peanut + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,754 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  3. Tomato + buttertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,918 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Form the hollow shell that holds the filling and softens as it bakes.
Peanut butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the filling a creamy, nutty flavour.
Breadcrumbs
Absorb moisture and add body, helping the filling hold together and brown lightly.

The step that matters

Bake until lightly browned. Baking at 400°F drives off moisture and browns the breadcrumbs. Pulling the tomatoes out too early leaves the filling wet and pale, while overbaking makes the tomato shells collapse.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (peanut, butter):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Onionfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against peanut, 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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