Skip to main content
Main

Tomatoes Stuffed

Tomatoes stuffed with a savory mixture of ham, herbs, and breadcrumbs, baked and served with optional gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Shallot and parsley 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 the filling

  1. Cut the center out of the tomatoes with a sharp knife.

  2. In a bowl, combine the minced shallot, parsley, ham, sweet herbs, bread crumbs, and seasoning. Bind the mixture together with the butter.

Bake and serve

  1. Fill each tomato with the mixture and place them on a buttered baking tray.

  2. Bake for 15 minutes at 350°F (175°C).

  3. Fry the croutons of bread until golden.

  4. Serve each stuffed tomato on a crouton.

  5. If desired, boil the tomato centers in stock for 5 minutes, strain, and serve around the tomatoes.

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

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

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

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

  5. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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 soften into a juicy, tender base when baked.
Butter
Binds the filling and adds richness and moisture as it melts in the oven.
Ham
Adds savory, salty flavor to the filling.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and help bind the filling together.

The step that matters

Bake until the tomatoes are just tender. Tomatoes are mostly water. Overbaking collapses their walls and leaves a watery pool, while underbaking leaves them firm and raw-tasting. Baking at 350°F for 15 minutes gives a softened shell that holds its shape.

Swap the tomato

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

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

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

More stuffed tomatoes recipes

Baked 22Shrimp 6Cheese 4with Mushrooms 4Celery 3Cucumber 3 See all 305 →

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipes