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Broiled Tomatoes

Broiled tomatoes are sliced, buttered, broiled, and seasoned with salt, pepper, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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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

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the tomatoes into thick slices without peeling.

  2. Brush each slice with melted butter.

Broil and serve

  1. Broil the tomatoes, turning frequently, until cooked.

  2. Place them on a hot dish.

  3. Season each slice with coarse sea salt, black pepper, and a small piece of butter.

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. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Tomato + buttertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,918 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Provide the juicy body and gentle acidity that the broiled slices are built around.
Butter
Adds fat that carries flavor and helps the surface brown under the broiler.

The step that matters

Broil until cooked, turning frequently. Direct broiler heat browns and dries the cut surface quickly. Turning the slices often lets them cook through evenly while keeping them juicy rather than scorched or shriveled.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, 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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