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Stewed Tomatoes

Tomatoes filled with seasoned roast meat, then browned and stewed.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Stewed Tomatoes

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the filling

  1. Cut the tomatoes across and remove the seeds without breaking the cells.

  2. Chop the cold roast meat finely and mix with bread crumbs, parsley, salt, pepper, and egg yolks.

  3. Fill each tomato half with the meat mixture.

  4. Glaze the filled tomatoes with egg whites.

Cook and brown

  1. Heat some fat in a frying pan and place the tomatoes meat side down.

  2. Cook until browned.

  3. Turn the tomatoes and cook for 10 to 16 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.

  1. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Tomato + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,398 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Tomato + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,013 recipes

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

  5. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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 moist, edible shell that softens while cooking.
Cold roast meat
Forms the savory body of the filling once chopped and mixed.
Egg yolks
Bind the meat and crumb mixture so it holds together when cooked.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the filling a light, cohesive texture.
Egg whites
Form a glaze that helps the surface brown in the pan.

The step that matters

Cook meat side down until browned before turning. Searing the cut face first sets and browns the surface, so the filled tomato holds its shape when turned. Turning too early can break the tomato and spill the filling.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, bread, parsley, pepper, egg):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, bread, parsley, pepper, egg. 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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