Name: Dressed Tomatoes
Ingredients: 4 tomatoes; 2 ounces cooked ham, chopped; 1 tablespoon butter; 1 teaspoon parsley, chopped; 2 teaspoons bread crumbs; pepper, to taste; coarse sea salt, to taste; 4 round croutons, fried

Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Dressed 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

Cut the tops off the tomatoes and remove the pulp, straining it.
Combine the strained pulp with the ham, parsley, butter, bread crumbs, pepper, and salt in a saucepan.
Heat the mixture until warm, then fill the tomatoes with it and replace the tops.

Bake and serve

Place the stuffed tomatoes in a 400°F (200°C) oven to heat through.
Serve the tomatoes on the hot croutons.

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.

Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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 + 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 shells that hold the filling and soften when heated through.
Cooked ham: Adds savory, salty flavor and chew to the filling.
Butter: Adds richness and moisture to the filling as it warms.
Bread crumbs: Absorb the tomato pulp and juices, thickening the filling so it holds its shape.

Swap the tomato

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

Carrotfits better
Shallotfits better
Capsicumfits about as well
Tomatothe original

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