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Stuffed Tomatoes, Tubkish Style

A baked dish of tomatoes filled with rice, onion, tomato sauce, and herbs, topped with breadcrumbs and butter.

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, Tubkish Style

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°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 chives or parsley.

Stuff and bake

  1. Stuff the mixture into the prepared tomatoes.

  2. Sprinkle fresh bread crumbs on top and place a small piece of butter on each.

  3. Arrange the stuffed tomatoes in a buttered baking pan.

  4. Bake at 400°F (200°C) until heated through and golden.

  5. 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 as they bake.
Rice
Absorbs broth and adds body, so the filling holds its shape when stuffed.
Onion
Frying gently builds a sweet, savory base for the filling.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the bread crumbs and tops turn golden in the oven.
Tomato sauce
Adds concentrated tomato flavor and moisture to the filling.
Fresh bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden topping that browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Reducing the tomato insides. Cooking the chopped tomato pulp until its moisture evaporates keeps the filling thick. Watery pulp would make it soggy and cause it to leak from the tomatoes while baking.

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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