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 ↓
Escaloped Tomatoes
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
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Grate the bread crumbs and place a layer of crumbs in the bottom of a baking dish.
Dot the crumbs with 2 tablespoons of butter.
Sprinkle with black pepper and coarse sea salt.
Layer and bake
Layer sliced tomatoes on top of the crumbs.
Sprinkle a little flour, more butter, salt, and sugar over the tomatoes.
Repeat layering with more bread and tomatoes until the dish is full.
Finish with a layer of bread crumbs on top.
Bake in the oven until browned.
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.
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Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together17,923 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Bread + tomatotop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,013 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Butter and flour 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
- Bread crumbs
- Form the body of the dish and soak up tomato juices, giving a soft, layered texture.
- Tomatoes
- Supply moisture and acidity that soften the crumbs and give the dish its tangy flavor.
- Butter
- Adds richness and helps the top crumbs brown in the oven.
- All-purpose flour
- Thickens the tomato juices slightly so the layers hold together rather than running.
- Sugar
- Mellows the tomatoes' acidity and adds a little sweetness.
The step that matters
Layering the flour and seasoning over the tomatoes. Flour must be spread lightly over the tomato layers so it can thicken the released juices evenly; clumps or too much flour leave pasty pockets, while too little leaves the dish soupy.
Swap the tomato
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, butter, pepper, flour, sugar):
- Capsicumfits better
- Shallotfits better
- Leekfits better
- Tomatothe original
Fit is the average pairing score against bread, butter, pepper, flour, 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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