Name: Stuffed Tomatoes
Ingredients: 4 ounces meat (chicken, ham, tongue, or any cooked meat); 2 ounces white bread crumbs; 1 ounce butter; 1 small shallot, finely chopped; Salt, to taste; Pepper, to taste; Pulp from the tomatoes

Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Stuffed Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Season the insides of the tomatoes with salt and pepper.
Finely mince or chop the meat.
In a pan, melt the butter over low heat and add the chopped shallot. Cook for 10 minutes without browning.
Add the minced meat, bread crumbs, chopped parsley, and the tomato pulp to the pan. Mix well.

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.

Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,923 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Bread + tomatotop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,013 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Shallot + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,898 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Shallot + tomatotop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together583 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

Swap the shallot

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

Capsicumfits better
Potatofits better
Asparagusfits about as well
Shallotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, bread, butter, pepper, tomato. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.