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 ↓
Stuffed 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 filling
Scoop out the insides of the tomatoes without damaging their shape.
Pass the insides through a sieve.
Mix the sieved tomato with bread crumbs, salt, pepper, and herbs if using. Stew the mixture for about 10 minutes.
Stuff and bake
Stuff the tomatoes with the mixture and tie a string around each to maintain their shape.
Sprinkle the stuffed tomatoes with additional bread crumbs.
Place them in a buttered dish and bake at 350°F (175°C) until heated through.
Remove the strings before serving.
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).
-
Tomato + breadtop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,013 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together20,964 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
-
Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together85,593 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Tomatoes
- Hold the filling as a juicy, edible shell that softens and releases moisture as it heats.
- Bread crumbs
- Absorb tomato juice and thicken the filling so it holds its shape rather than running.
The step that matters
Stuff and tie the tomatoes. Tomato walls are thin and soft, so tying a string around each tomato helps it keep its shape while the filling is added and heated. Removing the strings before serving keeps the tomato intact.
Swap the tomato
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, pepper, butter):
- Capsicumfits better
- Tomatothe original
- Potatofits about as well
- Asparagusfits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against bread, pepper, 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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