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Tomatoes Scalloped

A baked tomato dish with butter, onion, breadcrumbs, and optional eggs or sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread 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 Scalloped

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 the tomato base

  1. Stew the tomatoes.

  2. Season the tomatoes to taste.

  3. Add butter, chopped onion, coarse sea salt, and black pepper.

  4. Mix in enough bread crumbs to form a stiff batter.

Bake the scalloped tomatoes

  1. Pour the mixture into a buttered pudding dish.

  2. Top with more bread crumbs.

  3. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 20 minutes.

Make croquettes

  1. Make croquettes from leftover scalloped tomatoes.

  2. Fry the croquettes until golden brown.

Alternative variations

  1. Stew raw tomatoes briefly.

  2. Stir in beaten eggs.

  3. Bake for another variety.

  4. Layer raw sliced tomatoes with seasoning and bread crumbs.

  5. Top the layers with butter.

  6. Bake for 20 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.

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. Butter + breadtop 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

Tomatoes
Provide the main body, moisture and acidity that flavour the dish.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the tomato liquid and thicken the mixture so it holds its shape.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and helps the top brown while baking.
Onion
Adds aromatic savoury flavour as it softens with the tomatoes.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and set when baked, giving a firmer texture.

The step that matters

Mix in enough bread crumbs to form a stiff batter. Bread crumbs absorb the liquid from the tomatoes. Too few leaves the dish watery and loose, while the right amount lets it set firm when baked.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

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