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Tomatoes and Mushrooms

A baked casserole of sliced tomatoes, sautéed mushrooms, onion-tomato sauce, and buttered breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter 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 ↓

Tomatoes and Mushrooms

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Wash and peel the tomatoes, then slice them.

Assemble

  1. In a baking dish, layer the sliced tomatoes and the sautéed mushrooms alternately until the dish is filled.

  2. Season the tomato sauce with the chopped onion and pour it over the layered vegetables.

  3. Top with buttered bread crumbs.

Bake

  1. Bake at 400°F (200°C) until the top is 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.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Tomato + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,719 recipes

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

  3. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

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

  5. Tomato + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,013 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Provide the bulk of the casserole and release moisture and acidity as they cook.
Mushrooms
Add moisture and savory, earthy depth as they soften and release juices.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp topping that browns and contrasts with the soft vegetables below.
Butter
Adds fat that helps the bread crumbs brown evenly and adds richness.
Onion
Adds aroma and mild sweetness as it cooks into the sauce.
Tomato sauce
Adds liquid that moistens the layers and carries the seasoning through the dish.

The step that matters

Bake until the top is brown. The crumbs brown through browning reactions that need enough oven heat and time. Stopping too early leaves the vegetables watery and the topping pale, while overbaking dries and darkens the crumbs.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, mushroom, bread, sauce, butter):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, mushroom, bread, sauce, butter. 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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