Name: Stuffed Tomatoes
Ingredients: 12 large tomatoes; ½ teaspoon coarse sea salt; ½ teaspoon black pepper; 1 pound cold beef; 1 slice cold boiled ham; 1 teacup stale bread crumbs; 2 beaten eggs; 1 fried onion, minced; tomato juice from the tomatoes

Why it works: Beef and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. 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 tomatoes

Cut off the ends of the tomatoes and remove the seeds.
Sprinkle the inside of the tomatoes with salt and pepper.

Make the filling

In a bowl, mix the cold beef, chopped ham, stale bread crumbs, beaten eggs, minced onion, and tomato juice.
Season the mixture with salt and pepper.

Bake and serve

Fill the tomatoes with the mixture and place them in a baking dish.
Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 1 hour.

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.

Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,092 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,923 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,536 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
Tomato + beeftop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,448 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs: Bind the filling together so it holds its shape when baked.
Stale bread crumbs: Absorb moisture and add body to the filling.
Cold beef: Provides the main meaty texture and bulk of the filling.
Cold boiled ham: Adds savory, salty flavor to the filling.
Tomatoes: Serve as the edible shell that holds and bakes the filling.

Swap the onion

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

Capsicumfits better
Asparagusfits better
Potatofits about as well
Onionthe original

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