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Stuffed Tomatoes, American Style

A tomato dish filled with sautéed onions, tomatoes, mushrooms, bread crumbs, egg yolks, and parsley, baked until heated.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Stuffed Tomatoes, American Style

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the filling

  1. Prepare the tomatoes by scooping out the insides.

  2. In a saucepan, sauté the onions in butter until lightly fried.

  3. Add the chopped tomatoes and the scooped-out flesh to the saucepan.

  4. When the moisture is nearly reduced, add the chopped mushrooms.

  5. Cover the saucepan and continue cooking until moisture is reduced.

  6. Stir in the bread crumbs and season with salt and pepper.

  7. Cook the mixture for 10 minutes.

  8. Remove from heat and mix in the egg yolks and parsley.

  9. Allow the mixture to cool.

Stuff and bake

  1. Stuff the tomatoes with the cooled mixture.

  2. Sprinkle fresh bread crumbs on top of each tomato.

  3. Place a small piece of butter on each tomato.

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

  5. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until heated through.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  5. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 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 and, once cooked down, add moisture and tomato flavour to the filling.
Egg yolks
Bind the cooled filling and set when heated, holding its shape.
Bread crumbs
Absorb excess moisture and give the filling body, with extra crumbs browning on top.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the topping brown in the oven.
White onions
Soften and sweeten as they fry, building the base flavour of the filling.

The step that matters

Cooling the filling before stuffing. Adding the egg yolks to a hot mixture can scramble them, and a hot filling will loosen and make the tomatoes soggy. Letting it cool lets the yolks bind it thickly.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, butter, mushroom, bread, pepper, egg, parsley. 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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