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Stuffed Tomatoes

Stuffed tomatoes filled with seasoned breadcrumb mixture and baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and sage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,388 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Stuffed Tomatoes

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

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Choose medium-sized smooth tomatoes and remove the hard center, being careful not to break the skin.

  3. Fill the hole with a dressing made of bread crumbs moistened with hot water and seasoned with coarse sea salt, black pepper, sage, and melted butter.

Bake

  1. Place the stuffed tomatoes in a baking tin and bake until tender.

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 + sagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  5. Tomato + sagetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together417 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

Medium-sized smooth tomatoes
Serve as the hollow shell that holds the dressing while softening during baking.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and form the body of the dressing, giving it a soft, filling texture.
Melted butter
Adds fat and richness to the dressing and helps it brown lightly in the oven.

The step that matters

Removing the center without breaking the skin. The skin holds the tomato together while it bakes; a torn skin lets the dressing leak out and the tomato collapse.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Shallotfits about as well
  3. Carrotfits about as well
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, pepper, sage, 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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