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Broiled Tomatoes, Horseradish Hollandaise Sauce

Broiled tomatoes served with horseradish hollandaise sauce and buttered toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Broiled Tomatoes, Horseradish Hollandaise Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Pour boiling water over the tomatoes and let them stand for 2 minutes.

  2. Remove the skins and cut the tomatoes in half crosswise.

  3. Slice a thin piece from the rounded part of each half.

Broil and serve

  1. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and brush with melted butter.

  2. Place in a buttered broiler and broil over a clear fire for 6 to 8 minutes.

  3. Serve on circular pieces of buttered toast with a spoonful of sauce on each slice.

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

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

  2. Pepper + horseradishtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,646 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Horseradish + saucetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together775 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Tomato + horseradishtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together415 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Provide the main body of the dish, softening and warming under the broiler while keeping their shape.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, helping the tomatoes brown lightly under the broiler.
Horseradish hollandaise sauce
Adds a rich, creamy, sharp counterpoint to the warm, mild tomatoes.

The step that matters

Broil over a clear fire for 6 to 8 minutes. Tomatoes are mostly water, so too little heat leaves them watery while too much makes them collapse and burn. Watch them closely so they soften and brown while holding their shape.

Swap the horseradish

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Okrafits better
  4. Horseradishthe original

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