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Tomatoes on Toast

Tomatoes on toast is a baked tomato and breadcrumb topping served on buttered toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Tomatoes on Toast

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Cut the tomatoes into thick slices and arrange them in a single layer in a buttered baking dish.

  2. Season the tomatoes with salt, pepper, and lemon juice.

  3. Sprinkle the breadcrumbs over the tomatoes and place a small piece of butter on each slice.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for 15 minutes.

  2. Prepare the buttered toast while the tomatoes are baking.

  3. Place the baked tomatoes on the toast and drizzle with the pan gravy.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

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

  3. Tomato + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,592 recipes

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

  4. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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 and juice that soften and flavor the dish as they bake.
White breadcrumbs
Absorb the tomato juices and help form a light, slightly crisp topping as they bake.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the breadcrumbs and tomatoes brown lightly in the oven.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor of the tomatoes.

The step that matters

Baking the tomatoes in a hot oven. Tomatoes release a lot of liquid as they heat. A hot oven evaporates that moisture quickly, so the topping browns instead of turning soggy and the toast stays crisp underneath.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, lemon, 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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