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Escaloped Tomatoes

Escaloped tomatoes are baked with cracker crumbs, butter, sugar, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Escaloped Tomatoes

Why it works: Butter and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 98,233 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Escaloped 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. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Assemble

  1. In an earthen baking dish, layer cracker crumbs and small bits of butter.

  2. Add a layer of tomatoes and sprinkle a little sugar over them.

  3. Repeat the layers of cracker crumbs and tomatoes until the dish is full, finishing with cracker crumbs on top.

  4. Pour a little water over the layers to moisten.

Bake

  1. Bake for 30 minutes.

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. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Butter + tomatotop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,918 recipes

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

  3. Tomato + sugartop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,667 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Cracker crumbs
Form the bulk of the layers and soak up tomato juices so the dish holds its shape.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the crumbs brown as the dish bakes.
Tomatoes
Provide the main moist, acidic filling that softens and bakes down into the layers.
Sugar
Sweetens the tomatoes and balances their acidity.

The step that matters

Pouring the water over the layers. Too little liquid leaves the crumbs dry and chalky, while too much makes the dish soggy. A little water moistens the crumbs so they soften during baking without turning the dish into a soup.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Sweet potatofits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar. 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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