Name: Baked Tomatoes
Ingredients: 6 large tomatoes; ½ cup bread crumbs; 1 onion, chopped finely; 1 ounce butter; pepper to taste; coarse sea salt to taste; 1 ounce butter (for baking); ⅓ cup water

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 ↓

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

Wash and cut the tomatoes in half; remove the seeds.
In a bowl, mix the bread crumbs, chopped onion, butter, pepper, and salt.

Fill and bake

Fill the tomato halves with the mixture and tie them together.
Place the tomatoes in a pan with the remaining butter and water.
Bake at 350°F (175°C) until soft.
Cut the thread and serve.

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.

Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,923 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,633 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Tomato + breadtop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,013 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together68,474 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

Tomatoes: Form the main body of the dish and release juice that moistens the filling as they bake.
Bread crumbs: Absorb liquid from the tomatoes and the butter, giving the filling a soft, binding texture.
Butter: Adds fat and richness, carrying flavor and helping the surface brown in the oven.
Onion: Adds aroma and a mild sweetness as it softens during baking.