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Baked Tomatoes

Baked tomatoes with butter, sugar, salt, pepper, and breadcrumbs, served hot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and corn match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,099 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Baked 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. Scald and peel the tomatoes.

  2. Arrange them in a baking pan.

Fill and bake

  1. Cut a small hole in the stem end of each tomato and add a piece of butter, sugar, salt, and pepper.

  2. Cover with bread crumbs and dot with bits of butter.

  3. Bake at 300°F (150°C) for two hours.

Serve

  1. Carefully remove with a cake turner, place on a flat dish, and pour the pan liquid over them before serving hot.

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. Tomato + corntop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,099 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Corn + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,324 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

Tomatoes
Provide the main body and juicy filling that softens and becomes saucy as they bake.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, melting through the tomatoes and crumbs as they bake.
Bread crumbs
Form a topping that soaks up juices and browns lightly in the oven.
Sugar
Balances the tomatoes' acidity and adds a touch of sweetness.

The step that matters

Remove the tomatoes carefully. Baked tomatoes are soft and their skins and flesh break easily when lifted. Using a cake turner and supporting the whole tomato keeps them intact, and spooning the pan juices over them keeps the dish moist.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits about as well
  3. Tomatothe original
  4. Sweet potatofits about as well

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