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Tomato Omelet

A baked tomato and onion mixture with butter, bread crumbs, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Tomato Omelet

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 the tomatoes

  1. Pour boiling water over tomatoes, then skin and finely chop them.

Make the base

  1. In a pot, combine tomatoes, chopped onions, and butter; boil for 30 minutes.

  2. Mash the mixture, then stir in bread crumbs, salt, pepper, and beaten egg yolks.

Bake and serve

  1. Transfer to a baking dish, sprinkle a thick layer of bread crumbs on top, and bake at 350°F (175°C) until golden brown.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  3. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 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. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Provide the main bulk, moisture and sweet acidity of the dish.
Egg yolks
Bind the mixture and help it set into a cohesive, sliceable texture when baked.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and thicken the mixture, and brown on top to form a crisp crust.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavor and softening the onions and tomatoes.

The step that matters

Boil the tomato mixture until thick. Boiling for the full 30 minutes evaporates excess water from the tomatoes and onions. If the mixture stays watery, the bread crumbs and egg yolks will not bind it, and the baked dish may be loose rather than set.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, butter, bread, pepper, egg. 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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