Skip to main content
Main

Baked Stuffed Tomatoes

A baked tomato stuffed with buttered cracker crumbs and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Tomato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Baked Stuffed Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Cut a thin slice from the stem end of the tomatoes and remove the seeds and soft pulp.

  2. Mix the pulp with an equal amount of buttered cracker crumbs and season with salt, pepper, sugar, and onion juice.

Fill and bake

  1. Fill the cavity of the tomatoes with the mixture, heaping it in the center.

  2. Sprinkle buttered crumbs over the top.

  3. Place the tomatoes in a granite pan and bake at 400°F (200°C) until the crumbs are brown.

  4. Carefully lift them with a broad knife and serve very 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 + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Large smooth tomatoes
Form the hollow shells that hold the filling and soften as they bake.
Buttered cracker crumbs
Absorb the tomato pulp and form the filling, and brown on top in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the crumbs and helps them brown.

The step that matters

Bake until the crumbs are brown. Baking long enough lets the crumb topping brown and the tomato soften and warm through. Stopping too early leaves the filling pale and the tomato underdone.

Swap the onion

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

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

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

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipesTomato BisqueTomato Bisque61 recipesCream Tomato SoupCream Tomato Soup28 recipes