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Stuffed Tomatoes, Provincial Style

A tomato cavity filled with a savory mixture of shallots, mushrooms, tomatoes, bread crumbs, parsley, ham, and egg yolks, baked and finished with sweet oil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Stuffed Tomatoes, Provincial Style

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 the tomatoes

  1. Prepare the tomatoes by removing the tops and scooping out the insides.

Make the filling

  1. In a saucepan, heat the butter or sweet oil and sauté the shallots until lightly fried.

  2. Add the chopped mushrooms and chopped tomatoes, cooking until the moisture is almost gone.

  3. Stir in the bread crumbs, parsley, ham, salt, pepper, and nutmeg, and mix well for 5 minutes.

  4. Remove from heat and let cool.

  5. Mix in the egg yolks.

Stuff and bake

  1. Stuff the tomatoes with the mixture.

  2. Sprinkle with bread crumbs.

  3. Drizzle a few drops of sweet oil on each tomato.

  4. Arrange in a baking pan.

  5. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven.

  6. Serve with a brown Italian sauce.

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. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

  3. Shallot + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,719 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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Form the edible shell that holds the filling and softens as it bakes.
Mushrooms
Add savory depth; cooking them down concentrates flavor and drives off excess moisture.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the filling body so it holds its shape.
Egg yolks
Bind the filling and set when baked, holding the stuffing together.
Shallots
Provide a mild aromatic sweetness that builds the base flavor.
Cooked ham
Contributes salty, savory meatiness to the filling.

The step that matters

Cool the filling before adding the egg yolks. Egg yolks added to a hot mixture can scramble and cook unevenly, so they will not bind the filling smoothly. Cooling first keeps the yolks fluid so they blend in and set gently during baking.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (shallot, butter, mushroom, bread, parsley, ham, pepper):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against shallot, butter, mushroom, bread, parsley, ham, 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.

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