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Stuffed Tomatoes

A baked tomato stuffed with seasoned rice and lamb.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and rice 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

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Cut off the top or stem end of the tomatoes.

  2. Scoop out the seeds with the handle of a spoon, leaving the walls intact.

  3. Sprinkle the inside of the tomatoes with salt and turn them upside down to drain.

Stuff and bake

  1. Stuff the tomatoes with a mixture of boiled rice and minced lamb or mutton, well seasoned.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 35 to 40 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve plain or with cream sauce.

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. Tomato + ricetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,065 recipes

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

  2. Rice + lambtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together439 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  3. Tomato + lambtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together979 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans,trans-2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Serve as the hollow shell that holds the filling while baking, softening as it cooks.
Boiled rice
Absorbs juices and adds bulk, giving the filling a light, tender texture.
Minced lamb or mutton
Provides rich flavor and fat that keeps the filling moist as it bakes.

The step that matters

Draining the salted tomatoes. Salt draws water out of the tomato walls. Turning them upside down lets excess juice run off, so the filling does not become watery or dilute its seasoning.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, lamb):

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Okrafits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, lamb. 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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