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Broiled Tomatoes

Broiled tomatoes are sliced tomatoes seasoned with pepper, salt, sugar, coated in butter and breadcrumbs, then broiled.

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

Broiled Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Choose tomatoes that are not overripe.

  2. Cut unpeeled tomatoes into thick slices.

  3. Dust the slices with pepper, coarse sea salt, and powdered sugar.

  4. Roll the slices in hot melted butter, then in finely sifted bread crumbs.

Broil

  1. Brown the tomatoes in a wire broiler over coals or on a gas broiler.

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. 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
Provide the main body and juice that soften under heat while the outside browns.
Hot melted butter
Carries the crumbs and adds fat that promotes browning and a rich flavor.
Finely sifted bread crumbs
Form a coating that browns into a crisp, golden crust on the tomato slices.
Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the surface brown more deeply under the broiler.

The step that matters

Brown the tomatoes in a wire broiler. Heat must be strong enough to brown the crumb coating quickly, otherwise the tomato slices release juice and steam, becoming soggy before the crust sets.

Swap the tomato

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