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Stuffed Tomatoes

Stuffed tomatoes filled with ham, onion, bread, egg, and baked in a butter‑flour crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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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

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the filling

  1. Slice the top off each tomato and scoop out the pulp.

  2. Combine the ham, onion, and tomato pulp in a small saucepan.

  3. Cook the mixture slowly with a lid for 10 minutes.

  4. Season the mixture with salt, pepper, and cayenne.

  5. Stir in the grated bread.

  6. Add the beaten egg and stir until thickened, about 3 minutes.

  7. Carefully fill the tomato shells with the mixture.

Make the paste and bake

  1. Rub the butter into the flour and baking powder in a bowl.

  2. Add water to form a firm paste.

  3. Roll out the paste and line six patty pans.

  4. Bake the paste until pale brown.

Assemble and serve

  1. Place a stuffed tomato in three of the pans and pile the remaining mixture in the other three.

  2. Warm in a hot oven (400 °F / 200 °C) for 2 minutes and 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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  4. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Tomato + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,013 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Hold the filling as shells and add juicy, slightly acidic flavour when warmed.
Egg
Sets with heat to bind the filling so it thickens and holds its shape.
Flour
Forms the structure of the paste that lines the patty pans.
Butter
Adds fat that short-textures the paste and helps it brown.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the paste rises lightly and stays tender.
Ham
Provides savoury, salty meat flavour to the filling.

The step that matters

Add the beaten egg and stir until thickened. Egg proteins set when heated, so stirring over gentle heat thickens the filling evenly; if it boils hard or is overcooked, the egg can curdle and turn grainy.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, ham, bread, pepper, egg, flour, 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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