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Tomato Hash

A baked dish of layered tomatoes, cold meat, bread, butter, eggs, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Tomato Hash

Ingredients

Directions

Assemble

  1. Slice the tomatoes and layer them at the bottom of a buttered pie dish.

  2. Add a layer of thinly sliced cold meat.

  3. Cover with thin slices of buttered bread; repeat layers until the dish is full.

  4. Season with pepper, salt, and herbs to taste.

Bake

  1. Pour the beaten eggs over the top and bake until browned.

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 + 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. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Meat + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Provide moisture and acidity that flavour the layers as they soften.
Eggs
Bind the layers together and set into a custard as they bake.
Bread
Soaks up juices and gives the layers body and structure.
Cold meat
Adds savoury flavour and substance to the layers.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the top and bread brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Pour the beaten eggs over the top and bake until browned. The eggs must set into a custard without overbaking, which would make them dry and rubbery. Browning on top is the visual cue that the layers are cooked through.

Swap the tomato

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

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

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