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Stuffed Tomatoes

A dish of tomatoes filled with a mixture of peas, nuts, and mayonnaise or French dressing, served on lettuce leaves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Walnut and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 491 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Stuffed Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Drain the liquid from the can of peas.

  2. Mix the peas with the chopped walnuts or other nuts.

  3. Dress the mixture with mayonnaise or French dressing.

Stuff and serve

  1. Cut off the tops of the tomatoes without breaking them.

  2. Scoop out the insides of the tomatoes.

  3. Stuff the tomatoes with the pea and nut mixture.

  4. Serve the stuffed tomatoes on lettuce leaves.

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. Walnut + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together491 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  2. Peas + lettucetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,293 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  3. Tomato + lettucetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,655 recipes

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

  4. Peas + tomatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,058 recipes

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

  5. Walnut + tomatotop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together498 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

French peas
Provide the main bulk and mild sweetness of the filling.
Walnuts or other nuts
Add crunch and a rich, toasty flavour to the soft filling.
Mayonnaise or french dressing
Adds fat and moisture so the filling holds together and stays creamy.
Tomatoes
Act as the edible shell that holds the filling and adds acidity.

The step that matters

Cut off the tops of the tomatoes without breaking them. Tomato skin and flesh are thin and tear easily, and a torn shell lets the filling leak out. Cutting slowly with a sharp knife keeps the cap and walls intact so the tomato can hold its filling.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (peas, walnut, lettuce):

  1. Beetrootfits better
  2. Cucumberfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against peas, walnut, lettuce. 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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