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Stuffed Tomatoes

A baked dish of tomatoes filled with a mixture of rice, meat or walnut, onion, red pepper, and sugar, topped with butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and tomato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,065 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Stuffed Tomatoes

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. In a bowl, mix the cooked rice, minced meat or walnut meats, chopped onion, red pepper, and sugar.

  2. Cut the tops off the tomatoes and remove the centers.

  3. Add the centers to the mixture.

Stuff and bake

  1. Fill the tomatoes with the mixture.

  2. Place a small piece of butter on each tomato.

  3. Cover the baking dish.

  4. Bake until the tomatoes are tender.

  5. Remove the cover.

  6. Brown just before serving.

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. Rice + tomatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,065 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  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. Rice + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  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

Cooked rice
Bulks out the filling and absorbs juices from the tomatoes as they cook.
Minced meat or walnut meats
Adds protein and savoury body to the filling.
Onion
Adds aromatic flavour that softens and sweetens as it cooks.
Tomatoes
Act as edible cups that soften and release moisture, flavouring the filling.
Butter
Adds fat that promotes browning on the tomato surface.

The step that matters

Covering, then uncovering the dish. Baking covered traps steam so the tomatoes soften through without drying out. Removing the cover lets surface moisture evaporate so the tops can brown, and browning is best done just before serving so the tops do not dry or go limp.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, meat, pepper, sugar, tomato, butter):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, meat, pepper, sugar, tomato, 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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