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Stuffed Tomatoes, Tuekish Style

A Turkish-style dish of tomatoes stuffed with rice, onion, tomato sauce, and herbs, baked with butter and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and chive match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,907 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Stuffed Tomatoes, Tuekish 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 filling

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

  2. Cook the rice in chicken broth until dry.

  3. Finely chop the onion and lightly fry it in butter.

  4. Add the chopped tomato insides to the onion and cook until moisture is reduced.

  5. Stir in the tomato sauce, cooked rice, salt, pepper, and chopped chives or parsley.

  6. Mix everything well and stuff the tomatoes with the mixture.

Bake and serve

  1. Sprinkle fresh bread crumbs on top of each stuffed tomato and place a small piece of butter on each.

  2. Arrange the tomatoes in a buttered baking pan and bake at 350°F (175°C) until heated through.

  3. Serve with additional tomato 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. Onion + chivetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,907 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Rice + chickentop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,769 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  3. Tomato + ricetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,065 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  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
Hollowed shells that hold the filling and soften into a juicy, tender base when baked.
Rice
Absorbs the broth and tomato juices, giving the filling body and a tender, starchy texture.
Onion
Softened in butter, it adds sweetness and savory depth to the filling.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, helping the bread crumbs brown on top.
Fresh bread crumbs
Form a topping that browns and adds a light, crisp texture on top.

The step that matters

Cook the tomato insides until moisture is reduced. If the chopped tomato is not cooked down enough, the excess water stays in the filling, which dilutes it and makes the rice soggy and the stuffing wet when baked.

Swap the chive

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, rice, chicken, onion, butter, sauce, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Okrafits better
  4. Chivethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, rice, chicken, onion, butter, sauce, 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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