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Farced Tomatoes

Tomatoes stuffed with a breadcrumb and herb mixture, baked until soft, garnished with parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Farced 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

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Carefully scoop out the insides of the tomatoes.

Stuff and bake

  1. In a bowl, mix the bread crumbs, herbs, butter, salt, pepper, and egg yolks to form a stuffing.

  2. Stuff the tomatoes with the mixture and place a small dab of butter on top of each.

  3. Sprinkle with additional salt and pepper.

  4. Bake in the oven until the tomatoes are soft.

Serve

  1. Garnish with chopped parsley and serve on pieces of fried bread if desired.

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

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

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

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

  4. Tomato + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,398 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Hold the stuffing and soften into a juicy, tender base when baked.
Bread crumbs
Absorb butter and egg yolk to give the stuffing body and a soft, moist texture.
Egg yolks
Bind the stuffing so it holds its shape and sets lightly in the oven.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and helps the top brown and the stuffing taste rounded.

The step that matters

Bake in the oven until the tomatoes are soft. Tomatoes need enough heat and time to soften and cook through, while the egg yolks in the stuffing set. Underbaking leaves the filling loose and the tomato firm, and overbaking can collapse the tomato and dry the stuffing.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

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