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Baked Stuffed Tomatoes

A baked dish of tomatoes filled with veal or chicken, onion, biscuit crumbs, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Baked Stuffed Tomatoes

12 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. Cut a thin slice from the blossom end of each tomato and scoop out the pulp without breaking the rind.

Make the filling

  1. Mince the onion and fry it slightly in a pan.

  2. Add a small amount of hot water and the tomato pulp to the pan, along with the chopped veal or chicken.

  3. Simmer slowly and season with salt and pepper.

  4. Stir in enough biscuit crumbs to absorb the moisture and let the mixture cool.

Stuff and bake

  1. Stuff the tomato shells with the mixture, sprinkle dry crumbs on top, and add a small piece of butter to each.

  2. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven until the tops are slightly browned.

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

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

  2. Onion + biscuittop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together428 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + biscuittop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together841 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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 release juices that moisten the filling as they cook.
Cold veal or chicken
Provides the meaty body and savory bulk of the stuffing.
Biscuit crumbs
Absorb the tomato and cooking liquid so the filling holds together rather than running.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the crumb topping brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Stirring in the biscuit crumbs. Crumbs must be added only until the excess moisture is absorbed. Too few leaves a watery filling that makes the shells soggy, while too many makes the stuffing dry and dense.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, veal, pepper, biscuit, butter):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, veal, pepper, biscuit, 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.

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