Skip to main content
Main

Scalloped Tomatoes

A baked tomato dish layered with bread crumbs, butter, sugar, pepper, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Scalloped Tomatoes

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 ↓

Scalloped 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. Pare and slice the tomatoes.

  2. Scatter fine bread crumbs in the bottom of a baking dish.

Layer and bake

  1. Cover with slices of tomatoes, seasoned with sugar, pepper, coarse sea salt, and butter.

  2. Add another layer of crumbs followed by more tomatoes.

  3. Repeat layering until the dish is filled.

  4. Finish with crumbs and bits of butter on top.

  5. Bake covered at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes, then uncover to 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

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

  4. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 and moisture that softens and juices the dish as it bakes.
Fine bread crumbs
Soak up tomato juices and give the layers a soft, lightly set body rather than a wet one.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and helps the top crumbs brown when the dish is uncovered.
Sugar
Balances the acidity of the tomatoes with a touch of sweetness.

The step that matters

Uncover to brown. Baking covered keeps the tomatoes moist; the top only browns once the cover comes off, so timing the uncovering matters for a golden crust rather than a pale, soggy top.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits about as well
  3. Sweet potatofits about as well
  4. Tomatothe original

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

More scalloped tomatoes recipes

with Meat 5 See all 98 →

You might also like

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