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Baked Stuffed Tomatoes

A baked dish of hollowed tomatoes filled with bread crumbs, butter, salt, pepper, sugar, and optional onion.

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

Baked Stuffed Tomatoes

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Slice off a small piece from the stem end of each tomato and remove the core.

  2. Place the tomatoes in a baking dish.

Fill and bake

  1. Fill the hollowed tomatoes with a mixture of bread crumbs, butter, salt, pepper, sugar, and grated onion if desired.

  2. Replace the tops of the tomatoes.

  3. Bake in a 300°F (150°C) oven until done.

Serve

  1. Carefully remove the tomatoes from the baking dish.

  2. Arrange them on a hot serving dish.

  3. Garnish with sprigs of parsley.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  4. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  5. 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
Serve as the hollow shell that holds the filling and softens as it bakes.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and butter, giving the filling body so it holds its shape.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps the crumbs brown lightly in the oven.

The step that matters

Bake in a 300°F (150°C) oven until done. A low oven heats the tomatoes gently so they soften without collapsing or releasing too much liquid. Checking for doneness by sight and touch keeps the shells intact while the filling warms through.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, bread, butter, pepper, sugar, parsley):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, bread, butter, pepper, sugar, parsley. 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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