Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Stuffed Tomatoes
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the tomatoes
Cut slices from the stem end of the tomatoes and remove the juice and pulp with a spoon.
Dredge the inside of the tomatoes with salt and pepper.
In a frying pan, heat 1 tablespoon of butter and add the bread crumbs. Stir until the bread crumbs are brown, then fill the tomatoes with them.
Cover the openings with fresh crumbs and bits of butter.
Bake and make the sauce
Bake at 300°F (150°C) for 30 minutes.
Fifteen minutes before the tomatoes are done, make the sauce by heating ½ tablespoon of butter in a frying pan. Add the flour and stir until brown and smooth.
Then add the stock, tomato juice, and pulp, stirring until it boils. Season with salt, pepper, and onion juice, and simmer for 10 minutes.
Serve
Pour the sauce around the tomatoes and serve.
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.
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Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together17,923 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together20,633 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Tomato + breadtop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,013 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together68,474 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
- Tomatoes
- Hold the filling and, with their juice and pulp, provide the body of the sauce.
- Bread crumbs
- Absorb butter and browning in the pan, then form the filling that gives the tomatoes body.
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat, helping the crumbs brown and the sauce taste rounded.
- Flour
- Thickens the sauce as it cooks with the butter and stock.
- Stock
- Forms the liquid base of the sauce, which thickens as it boils.
The step that matters
Browning the flour in the butter for the sauce. Flour cooked in butter, called a roux, thickens liquids and develops flavor. Stir it steadily so it browns evenly without scorching, then add the liquid gradually to avoid lumps.
Swap the onion
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, bread, butter, flour, pepper):
- Capsicumfits better
- Eggplantfits better
- Okrafits better
- Onionthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, bread, butter, flour, 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.
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