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Stuffed Tomatoes

Stuffed tomatoes filled with a tomato, breadcrumb, sugar, butter, salt, and pepper mixture, baked until light brown.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Stuffed Tomatoes

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. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Cut a thin slice from the blossom end of each tomato and set aside.

  3. Scoop out the insides of the tomatoes and chop them finely.

Stuff and bake

  1. In a bowl, mix the chopped tomato insides with bread crumbs, sugar, butter, salt, and pepper.

  2. Stuff the hollow tomatoes with the mixture and fit the tops back on.

  3. Place the stuffed tomatoes in a deep dish in circular rows.

  4. Bake for 45 minutes until light brown.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Tomato + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,013 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Large smooth tomatoes
Form the hollow shell that holds the stuffing and cooks down into a soft, juicy base.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the tomato juices and give the stuffing body so it holds its shape.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the stuffing brown lightly in the oven.
White sugar
Balances the tomato's acidity and supports browning on the surface.

The step that matters

Scoop and chop the tomato insides. Tomato shells must be kept intact while the flesh is removed, since thin walls can tear and leak juice. Chopping the scooped flesh finely lets it blend evenly with the crumbs so the stuffing stays moist without becoming watery.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, sugar, butter, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits about as well
  3. Sweet potatofits about as well
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, sugar, butter, 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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