Why it works: Tomato and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,377 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓
Minced Meat in Tomatoes
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the tomatoes
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Cut off the stem end of each tomato and remove the cores and seeds.
Place the tomatoes in a baking pan and dust with salt and pepper.
Add a bit of butter to each tomato and bake until tender but not too soft.
Make the filling
Mix the cold cooked meat with salt, pepper, and crushed celery seed.
Heat the meat mixture in a saucepan with a little stock or water until hot.
Fill and serve
Remove the tomatoes from the oven and fill them with the meat mixture.
Top each filled tomato with a tablespoon of tomato sauce and serve.
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.
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Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,377 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
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Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together16,012 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
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Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together17,923 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together15,338 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Tomato + saucetop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together5,469 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Tomato
- Forms the edible shell that holds the filling and softens as it bakes.
- Cold cooked meat
- Provides the savory, substantial filling that the tomatoes hold.
- Butter
- Adds richness and moisture to the tomatoes as they bake.
- Tomato sauce
- Adds extra tomato flavor and moisture over the finished filling.
The step that matters
Bake until tender but not too soft. Tomatoes baked too long lose their structure and collapse, so they cannot hold the filling. Stopping when they are just tender keeps the shell intact.
Swap the celery
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, pepper, butter, meat, sauce):
- Thymefits about as well
- Parsleyfits about as well
- Celerythe original
- Capersfits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, pepper, butter, meat, sauce. 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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