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Stuffed Tomatoes

Tomatoes filled with a forcemeat of fowl, ham, herbs, and anchovy, baked and served with lemon and cayenne.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and shallot 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 ↓

Stuffed Tomatoes

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the forcemeat

  1. Make a forcemeat by pounding the fowl, ham, parsley, mixed herbs, white pepper, shallot, yolk of egg, and anchovy into a paste.

  2. Add the dissolved butter to the forcemeat and mix well.

Fill and bake

  1. Wipe each tomato, cut off the stem, and scoop out the seeds.

  2. Fill the tomatoes with the forcemeat.

  3. Bake on a tin dish in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 10 to 15 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve on a hot dish with cut lemons and cayenne pepper.

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. Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Egg + anchovytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,330 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Anchovy + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,697 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Parsley + anchovytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,702 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Veal + anchovytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together456 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold fowl or veal
Provides the main body of the forcemeat and a tender, meaty texture when pounded.
Cooked ham
Adds savoury flavour and fat that keeps the forcemeat moist.
Yolk of hard boiled egg
Binds the pounded ingredients together into a cohesive paste.
Butter
Enriches the forcemeat with fat, adding richness and softness to the filling.

The step that matters

Bake on a tin dish in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 10 to 15 minutes.. Baking only briefly is needed to heat the filling through and set it lightly without drying it out or overcooking the tomato, which would make it collapse and release excess liquid.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, ham, parsley, shallot, egg, anchovy, butter):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, ham, parsley, shallot, egg, anchovy, 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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