Skip to main content
Dessert

Tomates Farcies a LA D'uxelle — Stuffed Tomatoes

Tomatoes stuffed with ham, rice, onion, curry, and breadcrumbs, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Tomato and rice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,065 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Tomates Farcies a LA D'uxelle — Stuffed Tomatoes

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 tomatoes

  1. Make a circular incision on the side of each tomato, the size of a quarter.

  2. Scoop out the interior of the tomatoes.

Make the stuffing

  1. Chop and lightly fry the onion in butter.

  2. Add the chopped ham and boiled rice to the onion, then season with salt and curry powder.

Fill and bake

  1. Fill the tomatoes with the stuffing, sprinkle bread crumbs on top, and place a small lump of butter on each.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 15 to 20 minutes.

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

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

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

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

  3. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  4. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  5. Onion + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Serve as the hollow shell that holds the stuffing and softens as it bakes.
Boiled rice
Bulks out the stuffing and absorbs flavour and moisture from the onion and butter.
Ham
Adds savoury, salty flavour to the stuffing.
Onion
Adds sweetness and aroma when lightly fried in butter.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the crumbs and top brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 15 to 20 minutes. Tomatoes are mostly water and can collapse or turn watery if overbaked. Baking just until the tomato softens and the topping browns keeps the shells intact and the filling moist.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, ham, rice, bread, butter):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits about as well
  3. Potatofits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, ham, rice, bread, butter. 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.

More stuffed tomatoes recipes

Baked 22Shrimp 6Cheese 4with Mushrooms 4Celery 3Cucumber 3 See all 305 →

You might also like

Bread PuddingBread Pudding153 recipesRice CakeRice Cake120 recipesSoft Ginger BreadSoft Ginger Bread85 recipesOrange Potato BreadOrange Potato Bread80 recipes