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Scalloped Tomatoes

A baked tomato dish layered with bread crumbs, butter, sugar, pepper, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Scalloped Tomatoes

Why it works: Butter and bread 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 ↓

Scalloped 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. Pare and slice the tomatoes.

  2. Scatter fine bread crumbs in the bottom of a baking dish.

Layer and bake

  1. Cover with slices of tomatoes, seasoned with sugar, pepper, coarse sea salt, and butter.

  2. Add another layer of crumbs and then more tomatoes.

  3. Repeat the layering until the dish is filled, finishing with crumbs and bits of butter on top.

  4. Bake covered at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes, then uncover to brown.

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 + breadtop 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
Form the bulk of the dish and release juice that moistens the crumbs as it bakes.
Bread crumbs
Soak up tomato juice and form a soft, structured layer that browns on top when uncovered.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the top crumbs brown in the oven.
Sugar
Balances the acidity of the tomatoes with a touch of sweetness.

The step that matters

Bake covered, then uncover to brown. Baking covered first lets the tomatoes soften and release juice without drying out. Uncovering afterward lets the crumbs and butter brown; leaving the lid on too long would leave the top pale and soggy.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, pepper, butter, bread. 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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