Name: Forcemeat for Stuffed Tomatoes
Ingredients: 2 oz minced lean ham; 2 oz mushrooms, chopped; 2 oz bread crumbs; 4 to 8 shallots, minced; 1 teaspoon parsley, chopped; ¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper; Salt, to taste; 2 oz butter; 2 to 3 egg yolks

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 ↓

Forcemeat for 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

In a bowl, combine minced ham, chopped mushrooms, bread crumbs, minced shallots, chopped parsley, cayenne pepper, and salt.
Melt butter in a pan and sauté the mixture for a few minutes.
Add egg yolks to the mixture and stir until well combined.

Stuff and bake

Stuff the mixture into halved tomatoes.
Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for 10 to 20 minutes.

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.

Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,737 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Mushroom + shallottop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,982 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,525 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

Egg yolks: Bind the filling together and help it set lightly when baked.
Bread crumbs: Absorb moisture and give the filling body so it holds its shape.
Butter: Adds richness and carries flavour when the filling is sautéed.
Minced ham: Contributes savoury, salty flavour to the filling.
Mushrooms: Add earthy flavour and moisture to the filling.

The step that matters

Sautéing the filling before adding egg yolks. Cooking the mixture first drives off excess moisture from the mushrooms and ham. Adding raw egg yolks to a hot pan would scramble them, so the yolks must be stirred in off the heat or after the mixture has cooled slightly.

Swap the shallot

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

Shallotthe original
Asparagusfits about as well
Capsicumfits about as well
Spinachfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, mushroom, bread, parsley, pepper, butter, 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.