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Escalloped Tomatoes

A baked tomato dish with bread and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Escalloped 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 ↓

Escalloped Tomatoes

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Butter a baking dish.

  2. Cut the bread into small squares.

  3. Season the tomatoes with pepper and salt.

Layer

  1. Layer bread in the bottom of the baking dish.

  2. Pour some of the tomatoes over the bread.

  3. Add another layer of bread and more tomatoes until all ingredients are used.

  4. Moisten the bread crumbs with melted butter and spread over the top.

Bake

  1. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 20 minutes, or until the crumbs are nicely browned.

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. Pepper + breadtop 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 moist, acidic liquid that softens the bread into a saucy layer.
Stale bread
Absorbs the tomato juices and holds its shape, giving the dish body.
Bread crumbs
Form the top layer that browns in the oven for a crisp finish.
Butter
Adds fat that helps the crumb topping brown and gives a richer flavor.
Sugar
Balances the acidity of the tomatoes with a touch of sweetness.

The step that matters

Layer bread and tomatoes until all ingredients are used. Stale bread absorbs the tomato liquid gradually as it bakes. Layering evenly keeps the bread moist throughout, so the dish sets into a cohesive pudding rather than separating into soupy tomatoes and dry bread.

Swap the tomato

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

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