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Tomato Toast

A tomato puree spread with mustard, salt, sugar, vinegar, ham, cheese, and egg served on toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,259 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Tomato Toast

Ingredients

Directions

Make the topping

  1. Simmer tomato puree with French mustard, coarse sea salt, white sugar, vinegar, and salt and pepper to taste for a few minutes.

  2. Optionally, add an onion and remove it before serving.

  3. Stir in chopped ham and grated Parmesan cheese until hot throughout.

  4. Add the beaten egg and mix well.

Serve

  1. Serve the mixture on toast or fried bread.

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. Mustard + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,490 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Tomato puree
Forms the flavourful base of the topping and provides moisture and tomato acidity.
Beaten egg
Sets when heated, binding the mixture and giving it a thicker, creamier texture.
Grated parmesan cheese
Melts into the hot mixture, adding savoury depth and salty, umami flavour.
Chopped ham
Adds savoury, salty meat flavour and a little chew to the topping.

The step that matters

Add the beaten egg and mix well. Egg proteins set when heated, so adding it to a very hot mixture while stirring keeps it smooth and evenly thickened rather than lumpy or scrambled.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, mustard, sugar, vinegar, pepper, ham, parmesan cheese):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Lettucefits better
  3. Cucumberfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, mustard, sugar, vinegar, pepper, ham, parmesan cheese. 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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