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Baked Tomatoes

Baked Tomatoes are tomatoes filled with a mixture of breadcrumbs, cheese, mushrooms, parsley, and butter, then baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper 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 ↓

Baked 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

  1. Cut the tomatoes in half and scoop out a little of the pulp.

  2. Mix the pulp with bread crumbs, cheese, chopped mushrooms, parsley, and butter.

Fill and bake

  1. Fill the tomatoes with the mixture and place them on a buttered baking sheet.

  2. Season with pepper and salt.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 15 to 20 minutes.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Bread + cheesetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Hold the filling and soften into a juicy, tender base as they bake.
Fresh bread crumbs
Absorb the juices and give the filling body and a light texture.
Grated cheese
Melts into the filling and adds savory richness and browning.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps the top brown in the oven.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavor and moisture to the savory filling.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Garlicfits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Celeryfits about as well

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