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Tomatoes Stuffed with Meat

Tomatoes stuffed with a seasoned meat and breadcrumb mixture, baked until tender.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley 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 ↓

Tomatoes Stuffed with Meat

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

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Cut off the tops of the tomatoes and scoop out the inside pulp without peeling them.

  3. Chop the cold meat finely and mix it with the bread crumbs, butter, salt, pepper, parsley, and onion juice.

  4. Sprinkle a little salt and pepper inside the tomato shells.

Stuff and bake

  1. Fill the tomatoes with the meat mixture, adding moisture if needed with gravy, soup stock, milk, or cream.

  2. Arrange the stuffed tomatoes in a baking dish, replace the tops, cover, and bake for 30 minutes.

  3. Serve in the dish they were cooked in.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  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

Tomatoes
Form the edible shell that holds the filling and softens as it bakes.
Cold meat
Provides the main filling, adding savoury flavour and body to the stuffing.
Bread crumbs
Absorb juices and give the filling a soft, binding texture.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps the filling stay moist as it bakes.

The step that matters

Adding moisture to the filling. Bread crumbs soak up liquid, so a dry filling can bake stiff and crumbly. Adding gravy, stock, milk, or cream as needed keeps it moist and tender.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, meat, bread, butter, pepper, parsley, milk. 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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