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Tomatoes Stuffed

Tomatoes stuffed with ham, breadcrumbs, shallots, parsley, egg, pepper, and salt, baked until cooked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and shallot 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 ↓

Tomatoes Stuffed

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

  1. Choose tomatoes of the same size.

  2. Cut out the center of each tomato halfway through.

  3. Finely chop the ham and shallots.

Stuff and bake

  1. Mix the chopped ham and shallots with breadcrumbs, parsley, and raw egg.

  2. Fill the cavities of the tomatoes with the mixture, piling it high.

  3. Butter a baking dish.

  4. Place the stuffed tomatoes inside the dish.

  5. Bake for about 12 minutes at 350°F (175°C).

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. Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Pepper + shallottop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,898 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Form the edible shell that holds the filling and softens as it bakes.
Breadcrumbs
Absorb moisture and give the filling body so it holds its shape.
Egg
Binds the filling together so it sets firmly when baked.
Ham
Adds savory, salty flavor to the filling.
Shallots
Add mild aromatic onion flavor that mellows during baking.

The step that matters

Piling the filling high. Packing the mixture well into each cavity keeps it from collapsing and drying out, and the egg sets it so it stays in place as the tomatoes bake.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, parsley, pepper, shallot, 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.

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