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Scalloped Tomatoes

A baked tomato dish layered with bread crumbs, butter, salt, pepper, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Scalloped Tomatoes

Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Scalloped Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Drain the juice from the can of tomatoes and set aside for soup.

  2. In a buttered pie dish, layer bread crumbs.

Layer and bake

  1. Add a layer of tomatoes, seasoning with salt, pepper, and small bits of butter, plus a little sugar.

  2. Repeat with another layer of crumbs and tomatoes.

  3. Finish with a top layer of fine, dry crumbs.

  4. Bake covered at 400°F (200°C) until bubbling hot, then uncover to brown quickly.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

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

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 acidic, juicy filling that softens and bubbles while baking.
Bread crumbs
Absorb tomato liquid and form a soft layered structure, then crisp and brown on top.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavor and helps the top brown.
Sugar
Adds a little sweetness to balance the acidity of the tomatoes.

The step that matters

Uncovering to brown. Baking covered traps steam so the tomatoes heat through without drying. Uncovering at the end lets surface moisture evaporate, allowing the crumbs to brown quickly rather than stay pale and soggy.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, butter, sugar, bread. 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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