Name: Stuffed Tomatoes
Ingredients: ripe firm tomatoes; minced cooked meat; sheep's kidney; pork sausage; butter; coarse sea salt; black pepper; minced parsley; oiled butter

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 ↓

Stuffed Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Cut off the tops of the tomatoes and set them aside.
Scoop out the seeds from the tomatoes.
Fill the tomatoes with minced cooked meat, sheep's kidney, or skinned pork sausage.
Place a small piece of butter on each tomato.
Sprinkle with coarse sea salt, black pepper, and minced parsley.
Replace the tops on the tomatoes.
Brush the tops with oiled butter.
Place the tomatoes in a greased baking bag and cook for 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.

Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,923 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Tomato + parsleytop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,398 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Tomato + porktop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,843 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Meat + porktop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,208 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

Swap the tomato

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

Potatofits better
Capsicumfits better
Carrotfits better
Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, pork, butter, pepper, parsley. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.