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Stuffed Tomatoes

Stuffed tomatoes filled with a mixture of cold meat, bread crumbs, mushrooms, and seasonings, baked until cooked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the filling

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Remove the pulp from the tomatoes using a sharp knife.

  3. Mince the cold meat and mix it with bread crumbs and cooked mushrooms.

  4. Season the mixture with salt, onion juice, and paprika.

  5. Add melted butter and the tomato pulp to the mixture.

Bake and serve

  1. Fill the tomato cups with the mixture and bake for 20 minutes.

  2. Garnish with parsley and serve on toast.

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 + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,719 recipes

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

  3. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Hollowed out to hold the filling and softened by baking.
Cold meat
Provides the main body and savory flavor of the filling.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and help the filling hold its shape.
Cooked mushrooms
Add earthy flavor and moisture to the filling.
Melted butter
Adds fat for richness and helps the filling brown lightly.

The step that matters

Fill the tomato cups and bake for 20 minutes. Tomatoes hold a lot of water, so the filling can become soggy or loose if it is packed too wet. Mixing in the crumbs and butter, then baking until the tomato softens and the surface browns, helps the filling set.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, meat, bread, mushroom, onion, butter):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Celeryfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, meat, bread, mushroom, onion, 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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