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Stuffed Tomatoes

A baked dish of tomatoes filled with a breadcrumb and mushroom mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 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 filling

  1. In a bowl, combine bread crumbs, salt, and pepper.

  2. Pour melted butter over the mixture and stir.

Stuff and bake

  1. Stuff the mixture into the tomatoes, packing it in to form a pyramid.

  2. Place the tomatoes in a baking pan and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 1 hour.

  3. Alternatively, chop mushrooms and sauté in 1 tablespoon of butter for 5 minutes before stuffing into the tomatoes.

  4. Top with bread crumbs and bake for 20 minutes.

  5. Serve immediately, lifting carefully to avoid breaking.

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. Mushroom + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,719 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

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

  5. Bread + tomatotop 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

Bread crumbs
Form the bulk of the filling and absorb the melted butter to hold its shape.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, coating the crumbs so they brown in the oven.
Mushrooms
Add moisture and savory flavor to the filling when sautéed first.
Tomatoes
Act as the edible shell that holds the filling while it bakes.

The step that matters

Packing the filling into the tomatoes. Packing the crumb mixture firmly keeps it from collapsing or falling out during baking, so the pyramid shape holds and the filling stays inside the tomato.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Tomatothe original
  3. Shallotfits about as well
  4. Asparagusfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, pepper, butter, mushroom. 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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