Skip to main content
Main

Baked Tomatoes

A dish of tomatoes baked with breadcrumbs, butter, pepper, salt, onion, cornmeal, and optional sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Bread and butter 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 ↓

Baked Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Peel the tomatoes and place them in a baking dish.

  2. Add bread crumbs, butter, pepper, coarse sea salt, and onion if desired.

  3. Sift cornmeal over the top.

Bake

  1. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for 2 to 3 hours.

  2. If the tomatoes are acidic, substitute sugar for salt.

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. Bread + buttertop 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. Pepper + oniontop 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
Form the main body of the dish and release juices that moisten the topping as they bake.
Bread crumbs
Absorb tomato juices and help thicken the topping as it bakes.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps the topping brown lightly in the oven.
Cornmeal
Adds a slightly gritty texture and helps the topping crisp on top.
Sugar
Balances acidity in the tomatoes when used in place of salt.

The step that matters

Bake low and slow. A slow oven at 300°F lets the tomatoes soften and release juices gradually, so the topping dries and crisps without scorching before the tomatoes are tender.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, bread, butter, pepper, sugar):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Sweet potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

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

More baked tomatoes recipes

Stuffed 10with Bread Crumbs 3with Breadcrumbs 3with Cheese 3 See all 161 →

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipes