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Stuffed Tomatoes

Stuffed tomatoes filled with sautéed onions, tomato pulp, brown sugar, celery seed, butter, and bread crumbs, baked briefly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,377 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Stuffed Tomatoes

Oven, in the book's wordsA very hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a very hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the filling

  1. Fry the onions in bacon fat until rich brown.

  2. Cut out the insides of the tomatoes, leaving only the shells.

  3. Chop the tomato pulp into small pieces and add to the onions along with the brown sugar, celery seed, butter, and bread crumbs.

  4. Cook the mixture together for 20 minutes.

Bake and serve

  1. Fill the tomato shells with the mixture, cover the tops with buttered crumbs, and bake at 400°F (200°C) for 5 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. Celery + tomatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

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

  2. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Pepper + tomatotop 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

Onions
Fried until rich brown, they build a deep, sweet, savoury base for the filling.
Tomatoes
Their shells hold the filling, and their pulp adds moisture and tartness to the mixture.
Bread crumbs
They absorb the juices from the onions and tomato, thickening the filling into a spoonable mass.
Bacon fat
It fries the onions, adding richness and savoury flavour while helping them brown.
Brown sugar
It adds sweetness and helps the onions and filling caramelise and darken.

The step that matters

Frying the onions until rich brown. Onions that are only lightly cooked stay sharp and pale, while deeply browned onions develop sweet, savoury flavours through caramelisation, which shapes the whole filling.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, celery, butter, bread, pepper, tomato. 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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