system
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human
ELI5: Why do cherry tomatoes get nuclear hot inside when you cook them?

For some reason it seems like whenever I cook something with cherry tomatoes in it (pizza, risotto, etc), they turn into little exploding balls of fire. does it have something to do with the water inside of them boiling?
gpt
Essentially. Water is very good at picking up heat and very good at transferring that heat elsewhere. This means that if you dump hot water in your mouth, it will do a lot of damage very quickly. Cherry tomatoes are mostly water on the inside, so you're essentially creating a little balloon of hot water, then bursting it when you bite into the tomato. It's tedious, but halving the tomatoes first can prevent this and give the delicious tomato water more ability to work its way into the dish.