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Stuffed Tomatoes

Tomatoes filled with a mixture of finely chopped steak, bread crumbs, and butter, then baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. Rub the butter into the bread crumbs and season with salt.

  3. Chop the steak very finely.

  4. Slice the tops off the tomatoes and remove the pulp.

Fill and bake

  1. Mix the tomato pulp, chopped steak, and bread crumbs together.

  2. Fill the tomato shells with the mixture and replace the tops.

  3. Bake for 2.5 hours.

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

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

  2. Tomato + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,013 recipes

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

  3. Tomato + buttertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,918 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Hold the filling as edible shells and add juice and acidity as they cook.
Steak
Provides the meaty filling and savory flavor once cooked through.
Bread crumbs
Absorb juices from the tomato and steak, giving the filling body so it holds its shape.
Butter
Coats the bread crumbs, adding richness and helping them brown lightly in the oven.

The step that matters

Chop the steak very finely. Fine chopping lets the raw meat cook through evenly during the long bake and blend into the crumbs, so no large pieces stay raw or chewy.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Leekfits about as well
  2. Potatofits about as well
  3. Tomatothe original
  4. Shallotfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, butter. 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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