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Fried Tomatoes

Fried tomatoes coated in flour and sauce, served hot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Fried Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Fry the tomatoes

  1. Wash and cut the tomatoes in half, placing them in a frying pan with the skin side down.

  2. Cut the butter into small pieces and place over the tomatoes.

  3. Dust the tomatoes with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

  4. Fry slowly over moderate heat until the tomatoes are nicely browned, then carefully turn them over.

  5. Once browned on the other side, lift the tomatoes onto a heated platter.

Make the sauce

  1. Draw the frying pan over high heat.

  2. Add the flour, mixing until smooth.

  3. Gradually add the milk or cream, stirring continually until it boils.

  4. Season the sauce with salt and pepper.

  5. Pour the sauce over the tomatoes.

  6. Serve.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Tomato + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

Tomatoes
Main ingredient that softens and browns in the butter, becoming sweet and tender.
Butter
Fat that conducts heat for frying and browns the tomato surfaces.
Flour
Thickens the pan juices and butter into a smooth sauce as it cooks.
Milk or cream
Liquid that, once boiled, forms a creamy body for the thickened sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the milk or cream to the flour. Adding liquid gradually while stirring constantly keeps the starch dispersed, so the sauce thickens smoothly instead of forming lumps.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, flour, milk. 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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