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Stuffed Tomatoes

A baked dish of tomatoes filled with a crumbly buttered cracker mixture seasoned with salt, pepper, sugar, onion juice, bay leaf, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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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

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Cut a thin slice from the stem end of the tomatoes and remove the seeds and soft pulp.

  2. Mix the pulp with an equal amount of buttered cracker or bread crumbs.

  3. Season the mixture with coarse sea salt, black pepper, sugar, onion juice, ground bay leaf, and a pinch of nutmeg.

  4. If the mixture is not moist enough, add a little hot gravy or water.

Fill and bake

  1. Fill the tomato cavities with the mixture and sprinkle buttered cracker crumbs over the top.

  2. Use 1 cup of crumbs to ⅓ cup of melted butter.

  3. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°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.

  1. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Bread + hamtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  5. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Large smooth tomatoes
Form the shell that holds the filling and softens into a juicy base as it bakes.
Buttered cracker or bread crumbs
Absorb tomato juice and bind the filling, giving it body rather than sogginess.
Melted butter
Adds richness and helps the topping crumbs brown in the oven.
Onion juice
Adds savoury, aromatic flavour that complements the tomato.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, bread, pepper, sugar, nutmeg, butter, ham. 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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