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Dressed Tomatoes

Tomatoes hollowed and filled with a savory mixture of ham, parsley, shallots, breadcrumbs, and egg yolk, then baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Dressed Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Select tomatoes of equal size and cut a slice off the stem end.

  2. Carefully remove the pulp without breaking the rind and discard the seeds.

Make the filling

  1. Stew down the pulp and mix with shallots, parsley, ham, breadcrumbs, egg yolk, and salt until smooth.

  2. Let the mixture cool, then fill the tomato rinds with it.

Bake and serve

  1. Sprinkle buttered breadcrumbs on top.

  2. Place the tomatoes in a greased baking dish.

  3. Baste the tomatoes with butter.

  4. Bake until golden.

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. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  2. Tomato + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,398 recipes

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

  3. Tomato + shallottop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together583 recipes

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

  4. Parsley + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Ham + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

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

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 their pulp becomes the moist base of the stuffing.
Egg yolk
Binds the filling so it sets softly and holds its shape when baked.
Breadcrumbs
Absorb moisture from the pulp to thicken the filling and brown on top.
Ham
Adds savory, salty flavor to the filling.
Shallots
Contribute a mild onion aroma and sharpness to the filling.

The step that matters

Stew down the pulp before mixing. Tomato pulp is very watery, and if it is not reduced by stewing, the filling stays loose and soggy and will not hold together once baked in the shells.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (shallot, parsley, ham, egg, butter):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Welsh onionfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against shallot, parsley, ham, egg, 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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