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Panned Tomatoes

A baked dish of sliced tomatoes and onions topped with buttered biscuits, seasoned with salt, pepper, and sugar.

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

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

  2. Butter a baking dish.

Assemble and bake

  1. Layer sliced tomatoes in the dish.

  2. Add a layer of thinly sliced onions.

  3. Top with buttered biscuits.

  4. Season with coarse sea salt, black pepper, and a sprinkle of sugar.

  5. Bake until 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.

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. Onion + biscuittop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together428 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Biscuit + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together841 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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 and moisture that softens and bakes into the dish.
Buttered biscuits
Soak up the tomato juices and form a golden, browned topping.
Onions
Add savory depth and aroma as they soften under the baking heat.
Butter
Greases the dish and adds richness and browning to the biscuits.
Sugar
Adds a little sweetness that balances the acidity of the tomatoes and aids browning.

The step that matters

Bake until nicely browned. Baking long enough lets moisture from the tomatoes evaporate and the biscuit topping brown through Maillard reactions. Pulling it too early leaves the layers wet and the top pale.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, onion, biscuit, pepper, 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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