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 the tomatoes
Cut a thin slice from the blossom end of each tomato and remove the pulp with a teaspoon, being careful not to break the skin.
In a bowl, mix the chopped onion, bread crumbs, and tomato pulp. Season with pepper, coarse sea salt, and sugar, then add the sweet cream.
Fill each tomato with the mixture and replace the top slice.
Bake and serve
Place the tomatoes stem end down in a buttered baking dish, add a little water, and place a small lump of butter on each.
Bake at 350°F (175°C) for half an hour or until thoroughly done.
Add a bit of butter on top of each tomato and serve in the same dish.
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.
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Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together17,923 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together20,633 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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 tender, juicy cups as they bake.
- Bread crumbs
- Absorb the tomato juices and cream, giving the filling body so it holds its shape.
- Sweet cream
- Adds richness and moisture to the filling, keeping it soft and creamy after baking.
- Onion
- Adds savory depth and aroma to the filling as it cooks.
- Butter
- Adds fat that enriches the tomatoes and helps the tops brown and taste rich.
The step that matters
Remove the pulp without breaking the skin. A torn tomato shell lets the filling leak and the juices escape into the dish, so the stuffed tomato loses its shape and moisture. Keeping the skin intact lets it hold the filling while it bakes and softens.
Swap the tomato
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, bread, pepper, sugar, cream, butter):
- Potatofits better
- Capsicumfits better
- Leekfits better
- Tomatothe original
Fit is the average pairing score against onion, bread, pepper, sugar, cream, 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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