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Tomato Scallop

Tomato Scallop is a baked tomato dish with crumbs, batter, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Tomato Scallop

Ingredients

Directions

Assemble

  1. Butter a baking dish and add a layer of crumbs to the bottom.

  2. Arrange a layer of sliced tomatoes on top and sprinkle with salt, pepper, sugar, and crumbs.

  3. Dot with bits of batter.

  4. Repeat layering with remaining tomatoes, seasoning, and crumbs.

  5. Reserve a generous layer of crumbs for the top.

Bake

  1. Cover and bake until it bubbles.

  2. Remove the cover and allow the top to brown.

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. Tomato + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,013 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Bread + sugartop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,638 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Pepper + sugartop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,401 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Pepper and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,401 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
Supply the juicy body of the dish, releasing liquid that moistens and softens the layers as they bake.
Bread or cracker crumbs
Absorb the tomato juices and give the layers body, while the top layer crisps and browns.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the acidity of the tomatoes.

The step that matters

Removing the cover to brown the top. Baking covered traps steam, which keeps the tomatoes moist and cooks them through. Uncovering lets surface moisture evaporate, so the crumbs can brown and crisp. Uncovering too early leaves the top pale and soggy.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatothe original
  3. Mustardfits about as well
  4. Sweet potatofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, pepper, 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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