Name: Stuffed Baked Tomatoes
Ingredients: large smooth tomatoes; grated bread; green corn; butter; ¼ teaspoon salt; ¼ teaspoon pepper; 1 teaspoon sugar

Why it works: Tomato and corn match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,099 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Stuffed 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

Cut a thin slice from the blossom end of the tomatoes and scoop out the insides.
Chop the insides finely and mix with grated bread, green corn, butter, salt, pepper, and sugar.

Bake

Stuff the hollowed tomatoes with the mixture and replace the sliced pieces.
Bake in a deep dish at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes, until brown.

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.

Tomato + corntop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,099 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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 + breadtop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,013 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,324 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Large smooth tomatoes: Hollowed out to hold the filling, softening into tender, juicy shells as they bake.
Grated bread: Absorbs tomato juices and binds the filling so it holds its shape.
Green corn: Adds bulk and a sweet, starchy texture to the stuffing.
Butter: Adds fat and richness, and helps the top brown in the oven.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, corn, butter, pepper, sugar):

Capsicumfits better
Potatofits about as well
Tomatothe original
Sweet potatofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, corn, butter, pepper, sugar. 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.