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Stuffed Tomatoes

Stuffed tomatoes filled with bread crumbs, nuts, onion, and butter, baked with water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a bowl, mix the stale bread crumbs, chopped nuts, grated onion, salt, pepper, and melted butter.

  3. Cut the stem end from the tomatoes and remove the seeds and centers.

Bake and serve

  1. Stuff the tomatoes with the mixture and place them in a baking pan.

  2. Add the water to the pan and bake for 30 minutes, basting once or twice.

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. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  3. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  4. Bread + tomatotop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,013 recipes

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

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

Stale bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and form the bulk of the stuffing, giving it body.
Chopped nuts
Add crunch and richness to the stuffing's texture.
Grated onion
Adds savory flavor and aroma to the stuffing.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps the stuffing brown in the oven.
Tomatoes
Act as the edible shell, softening and releasing juices as they bake.

The step that matters

Basting with the pan liquid. Basting the tomatoes during baking spreads moisture over their surfaces, helping them cook evenly without drying out before the filling is heated through.

Swap the nuts

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

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Chickpeafits better
  3. Lima beansfits better
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, onion, pepper, butter, 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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