Name: Baked Tomatoes with Meat Dressing
Ingredients: 4 large tomatoes; ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt; ¼ teaspoon black pepper; 1 tablespoon butter; ½ cup cooked veal or chicken, finely chopped (or cold sweetbreads); ¼ teaspoon ground mace; 1 raw egg; ½ cup bread crumbs

Why it works: Butter and bread 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 with Meat Dressing

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 off the stem end of each tomato and scoop out the insides with a spoon.
Place the insides in a small sieve to drain the bitter water for 30 minutes.

Make the filling

In a bowl, mix the drained tomato insides with the chopped meat, pepper, salt, mace, butter, and raw egg.

Bake

Fill each tomato with the meat mixture and cover with bread crumbs.
Place the tomatoes in a baking dish and bake at 350°F (175°C) for about 20 minutes.

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.

Butter + breadtop 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).
Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,662 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together12,257 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

Pepper and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Raw egg: Binds the filling so it holds together when baked.
Bread crumbs: Form a crisp, browned topping over the filling.
Cooked veal or chicken: Provides the savory, substantial body of the filling.
Butter: Adds richness and moisture to the filling.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, pepper, butter, veal, egg, bread):

Parsleyfits better
Thymefits better
Tarragonfits better
Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, pepper, butter, veal, egg, bread. 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.