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Scrambled Egg with Tomatoes

A quick scrambled egg dish flavored with tomatoes, onions, and spices, served on toast or biscuits.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Scrambled Egg with Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a pan, melt the butter and cook the chopped onion until brown.

  2. Heat the strained tomatoes in a separate pot.

  3. In a bowl, beat the eggs with sugar, salt, pepper, and paprika.

  4. Stir the heated tomatoes into the egg mixture.

Cook and serve

  1. Pour the egg and tomato mixture into the pan with the onions and cook until creamy.

  2. Add cheese if desired.

  3. Serve on toast or warmed shredded biscuits, split side up.

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

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

  2. Onion + biscuittop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together428 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  4. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  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

Eggs
Set into a creamy, tender structure as they cook, forming the body of the dish.
Strained tomatoes
Add moisture and acidity, loosening the eggs and giving a fresh, tangy flavor.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps keep the eggs from sticking to the pan.
Onion
Adds savory aroma and sweetness as it browns in the butter.

The step that matters

Cook the egg and tomato mixture until creamy. Egg proteins set with heat, and cooking gently over moderate heat keeps them soft and creamy. Overcooking squeezes out moisture and turns the eggs dry and rubbery.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, butter, egg, sugar, pepper, cheese, biscuit):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, butter, egg, sugar, pepper, cheese, biscuit. 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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