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Tomato Baskets

Tomato baskets filled with a gelatinous fish mixture, served on lettuce or cress.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lobster and cream 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 and scoop out the pulp to create baskets.

Make the filling

  1. Dissolve the gelatine in the fish stock.

  2. Add the luxette and, when it starts to set, stir in the whipped cream.

  3. Season with salt and pepper, and color it a pale pink with cochineal.

Fill and serve

  1. Pass the mixture through a piping bag into the tomato baskets.

  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. Lobster + creamtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,050 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Fish + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,948 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
Form the edible baskets that hold the filling and add fresh acidity.
Gelatine
Sets the fish stock mixture so the filling holds its shape in the tomatoes.
White fish stock
Provides the liquid base that the gelatine sets, adding savoury flavour.
Luxette
Supplies the main fish flavour and richness of the filling.
Cream
Adds fat and a light, smooth texture to the set filling.

The step that matters

Dissolve the gelatine in the fish stock. Gelatine must dissolve fully in warm liquid before it cools. Undissolved granules leave gritty spots, and if the mixture is too hot or too cold the filling may fail to set evenly.

Swap the tomato

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

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

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