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Stuffed Tomatoes

Tomatoes filled with sautéed onion, tomato pulp, bread crumbs, parsley, butter, salt, and cayenne, then baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Stuffed Tomatoes

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Wipe the tomatoes dry and cut off the tops to create hinged covers.

  2. Scoop out the centers, leaving enough meat to form shells.

Make the filling

  1. Mince and sauté the onion until golden, then add the tomato pulp and simmer for 20 minutes.

  2. Season with butter, coarse sea salt, and Cayenne pepper.

  3. Add enough bread crumbs to absorb the juice and mix in chopped parsley.

Bake and serve

  1. Stuff the mixture into the tomato shells.

  2. Arrange the stuffed tomatoes on an oiled baking pan.

  3. Bake for 20 minutes at 300°F (150°C).

  4. Serve on a fancy folded napkin.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  4. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,398 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Form the edible shells and, once their pulp is cooked down, the moist base of the filling.
Onion
Adds savory sweetness and aroma as it browns in the sauté.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the tomato juice so the filling holds together rather than running out.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the filling.

The step that matters

Adding the bread crumbs. Crumbs should soak up the juice only until the filling is moist but not loose. Too much juice makes the filling soggy and runny, while too few crumbs leave it wet and unable to hold its shape inside the shells.

Swap the onion

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

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

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