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Fried Tomatoes

Fried tomatoes served with a buttery milk sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Fried Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut ripe tomatoes into thick slices.

  2. Dredge the slices with flour.

Fry the tomatoes

  1. Heat 3 tablespoons of butter or drippings in a pan.

  2. Place the tomatoes in the pan, flour side down, and fry until golden on both sides.

  3. Transfer the fried tomatoes to a hot platter.

  4. Remove any burnt pieces from the pan.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Add 1 tablespoon of butter and 2 tablespoons of flour to the pan.

  2. Stir continually until the mixture is brown.

  3. Add 1 pint of milk and cook until smooth.

  4. Season with salt and pepper, then pour the sauce over the tomatoes.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Tomato + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Ripe tomatoes
Form the main body of the dish, becoming tender and juicy when fried.
Flour
Coats the slices so they brown in the fat and help thicken the sauce.
Butter or drippings
Fat for frying that browns the tomato surfaces and adds rich flavor.
Milk
Liquid that, with the browned flour, forms a smooth, creamy sauce.

The step that matters

Stirring the flour and fat until brown. The flour and fat mixture must be stirred constantly so it browns evenly without scorching. Burnt flour turns bitter and dark, and it can taint the smooth sauce added afterward.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, milk, 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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