Skip to main content
Main

Baked Tomatoes

Baked tomatoes stuffed with a mixture of butter, onion, bread crumbs, minced tongue, chopped meat, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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

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 the filling

  1. Peel the tomatoes and cut a thick slice off the top.

  2. Scrape out the seeds and watery pulp and place in a saucepan.

  3. Add pepper, salt, butter, grated onion, bread crumbs, minced tongue, and chopped meat to the saucepan. Heat the mixture thoroughly and mix well.

Stuff and bake

  1. Fill the tomatoes with the mixture and replace the tops.

  2. Arrange the tomatoes in a buttered baking dish.

  3. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for 1 hour, covering for the first 30 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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 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

Ripe tomatoes
Form the edible shell that holds the filling and softens as it bakes.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the tomato juices and bind the filling so it holds its shape.
Cooked meat (tongue, lamb, chicken or veal)
Provides the savoury, substantial body of the filling.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavour and helps the filling brown lightly.

The step that matters

Covering for the first 30 minutes. Covering traps steam so the tomatoes cook through and soften without drying out or scorching the filling. Uncovering afterward lets the tops brown and the surface concentrate.

Swap the onion

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

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

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

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipes