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Mushrooms with Tomatoes

Tomatoes are filled with seasoned mushrooms and baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,719 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Mushrooms with Tomatoes

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Cut off the tops of the tomatoes and scoop out the insides.

  2. Mince the mushrooms and season with a little coarse sea salt and a dash of cayenne or paprika.

Fill and bake

  1. Fill the tomatoes with the mushroom mixture.

  2. Place a teaspoon of butter on top of each tomato.

  3. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until heated through.

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

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

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

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

  3. Tomato + buttertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,918 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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 and softens as it heats.
Mushrooms
Provide the savoury, meaty filling that browns and concentrates in flavour as it cooks.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, helping the top brown and carrying flavour into the filling.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, butter. 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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