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Tomato Baskets

Tomato baskets filled with a gelatinous mixture of stock, cream, and luxette, served on lettuce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and lobster are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,050 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Tomato Baskets

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Cut the tops off the tomatoes.

  2. Scoop out the pulp to create baskets.

Make the filling

  1. Dissolve the gelatine in the stock.

  2. Add the luxette to the mixture.

  3. Wait until the mixture begins to set.

  4. Fold in the whipped cream.

  5. Season the mixture.

  6. Color the mixture a pale pink with cochineal.

Fill and serve

  1. Use a piping bag to fill the tomato baskets with the mixture.

  2. Serve on a bed of lettuce or cress.

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. Cream + lobstertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,050 recipes

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

  2. Tomato + fishtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together213 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hepten-3-one (metal).

  3. Fish + lobstertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together326 recipes

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

  4. Fish + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together937 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + lobstertop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together118 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Gelatine
Sets the stock and cream mixture so it holds its shape in the baskets.
Cream
Adds richness and a light, soft texture when whipped and folded in.
White or fish stock
Forms the liquid base that the gelatine sets into a savoury filling.
Luxette or potted lobster
Provides the main seafood flavour and richness of the filling.

The step that matters

Wait until the mixture begins to set. Folding in the cream too early, before the gelatine has partly set, can deflate the whipped cream and leave the filling runny. Once it just thickens, it holds air and piping works.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, cream, lobster):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Onionfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, cream, lobster. 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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