Name: Stuffed Tomatoes
Ingredients: 1 cup soft bread crumbs; ½ teaspoon salt; dash of pepper; 1 tablespoon melted butter; mushrooms (optional)

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 topping

In a bowl, combine bread crumbs, salt, and pepper, then pour melted butter over the mixture and stir.

Bake and serve

Heap the mixture over the top of the tomatoes, packing in the mushrooms if using.
Place the tomatoes in a baking pan and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 1 hour.
Serve immediately, lifting them carefully to prevent breaking.
For a different flavor, chop mushrooms finely, sauté in 1 tablespoon of butter for 5 minutes, then stuff into tomatoes before adding bread crumbs and baking for 20 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.

Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,525 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
Bread + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,536 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Pepper + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together13,580 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,964 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

Soft bread crumbs: Form the bulk of the topping and soak up butter to create a crisp, golden crust.
Melted butter: Adds fat and moisture to the crumbs, helping them brown and taste rich.

“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.