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Scalloped Tomatoes

A baked tomato dish with bread crumbs and butter.

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

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 ↓

Scalloped Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Melt the butter in a pan.

  2. Add the bread crumbs to the melted butter.

Assemble

  1. Mix half of the buttered crumbs with the stewed tomatoes, grated onion, salt, and pepper.

  2. Pour the mixture into a buttered baking dish and cover with the remaining crumbs.

Bake

  1. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until brown, about 40 minutes.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Stewed tomatoes
Provide the main body, moisture and acidity of the dish.
Bread crumbs
Soak up tomato liquid to thicken the mixture and form a crisp, browned topping.
Butter
Coats the crumbs so they brown in the oven and add richness.
Grated onion
Adds aromatic flavor that blends into the tomato base.

The step that matters

Baking until brown. Baking long enough lets the buttered crumbs toast and brown on top, which gives the dish its crisp contrast to the soft tomato layer. Stopping too early leaves the topping pale and soggy.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Carrotfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, bread, pepper, 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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