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Tomatoes on Toast

Tomatoes are stuffed with herbs, ham, and egg, battered, fried, and served on buttered toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Tomatoes on Toast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Preheat the oil for frying.

  2. Cut the tops off the tomatoes and remove some seeds.

  3. In a bowl, mix parsley, sweet herbs, grated ham, and a lump of butter with the raw egg.

  4. Fill the tomato cavities with the mixture.

Fry and serve

  1. Dip the stuffed tomatoes into the light batter.

  2. Fry the tomatoes quickly until golden.

  3. Meanwhile, toast the bread slices with butter.

  4. Serve the fried tomatoes on the buttered toast.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Bread + hamtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  5. Tomato + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,398 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Hold the filling and soften into a juicy centre while the coating crisps.
Raw egg
Binds the herb and ham filling so it holds together in the tomato.
Light batter
Forms a golden coating that crisps in the hot oil.
Butter
Adds richness and browning to the filling and the toast.
Grated ham
Adds savoury flavour to the filling.

The step that matters

Fry the tomatoes quickly until golden. Frying briefly in hot oil sets and browns the batter before the tomato turns soft and collapses. Lingering too long lets the juices leak out and the coating turn greasy.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

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