Name: Tomatoes on Toast
Ingredients: very ripe tomatoes; stale slices of bread; butter

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 on Toast

Ingredients

very ripe tomatoes
stale slices of bread
butter

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

Remove the peel from the tomatoes, then mash and press them through a colander.
Put the tomato mixture in a pan and season to taste; cook for fifteen minutes.

Assemble and serve

Toast the stale bread slices until golden brown and place them on a platter.
Butter each slice of toast, then pour the tomato mixture over them.
Serve immediately.

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.

Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Tomato + breadtop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,013 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Tomato + buttertop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,918 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Very ripe tomatoes: Provide the main body and sweet, acidic flavour of the topping once mashed and cooked.
Stale slices of bread: Act as the crisp, absorbent base that holds the warm tomato mixture.
Butter: Adds richness and fat that coats the toast and carries flavour.