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Stuffed Tomatoes, Provencal

Stuffed tomatoes filled with a sautéed onion, garlic, mushroom, and sauce mixture, baked until tender.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Stuffed Tomatoes, Provencal

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 filling

  1. Prepare the tomatoes by cutting off the tops and scooping out the pulp.

  2. Simmer the pulp until thick.

  3. Add the Espagnole sauce and meat glaze, then heat the mixture.

  4. Strain it through a fine sieve to remove seeds.

  5. In a pan, sauté the onion, garlic, and mushrooms in butter until soft.

  6. Add the strained sauce and enough bread crumbs to thicken the mixture.

Stuff and bake

  1. Stuff the tomato shells with the mixture.

  2. Place the tops back on.

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

  4. Serve hot.

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. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Tomato + garlictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,076 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Garlic + mushroomtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,700 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  4. Tomato + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,719 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

What each ingredient does

Ripe tomatoes
Form the edible shells that hold the filling and soften as they bake.
Espagnole sauce
Adds a rich, savory body that gives the filling its depth of flavor.
Meat glaze
Concentrates savory meaty flavor and helps the sauce taste deeper.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and thicken the mixture so it holds its shape in the tomatoes.
Butter
Adds fat and richness while softening the onion, garlic, and mushrooms.
Mushrooms
Contribute earthy savory flavor and moisture to the filling.

The step that matters

Simmering the pulp until thick. Tomato pulp holds a lot of water. Reducing it concentrates flavor and keeps the filling from making the stuffed tomatoes watery and loose.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, onion, garlic, mushroom, butter, sauce, meat):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Cuminfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, onion, garlic, mushroom, butter, sauce, meat. 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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