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Tomato Toast

Tomato Toast is a dish of stewed tomatoes served over toasted bread with butter, sweet cream, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 ↓

Tomato Toast

Ingredients

Directions

Make the tomato base

  1. Stew the tomatoes until smooth.

  2. Season with salt, pepper, and butter.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the toasted bread and sweet cream mixed with flour.

  2. Let it scald but do not boil.

  3. Pour over well-buttered slices of dipped toast.

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. 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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
Form the main body of the dish, giving it its flavor and a smooth, pulpy texture when stewed.
Sweet cream
Adds richness and body, softening the acidity of the tomatoes.
Flour
Thickens the cream so it blends smoothly into the hot tomatoes without curdling.
Bread
Soaks up the tomato mixture and provides a sturdy base for the dish.
Butter
Adds fat and a rounded, savory richness to the tomatoes and toast.

The step that matters

Let it scald but do not boil. Once cream is combined with hot tomatoes, boiling can cause it to curdle or separate. Heating just until steaming keeps the sauce smooth and creamy.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

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