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Stuffed Tomatoes

A tomato filled with ham, breadcrumbs, onion, and butter, baked until heated.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Stuffed Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the filling

  1. In a skillet, fry the minced onion in butter until soft.

  2. Add the chopped ham and cook until done.

  3. Stir in the breadcrumbs and season with salt and pepper.

Stuff and bake

  1. Cut a circle from the top of each tomato and scoop out most of the inside.

  2. Fill each tomato with the ham and breadcrumb mixture and replace the tops.

  3. Place the stuffed tomatoes in a baking dish lined with buttered paper.

  4. Cover with another piece of buttered paper and bake at 400°F (200°C) until heated through.

  5. Serve hot as a breakfast dish.

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

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

  2. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + hamtop 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 and soften into a juicy, tender base as they heat.
Breadcrumbs
Absorb the butter and juices to give the filling body and a soft, moist texture.
Butter
Softens the onion and adds richness and flavor to the filling.
Ham
Adds savory, salty flavor to the breadcrumb filling.

The step that matters

Bake until heated through. The tomatoes should be heated through and tender without collapsing. Covering them with buttered paper traps steam and moisture, keeping the filling from drying out while the tomato cooks.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, butter, ham, pepper. 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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