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Tomatoes Au Gratin

Tomatoes au gratin is a baked tomato dish with a crumbly, buttery filling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter 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 ↓

Tomatoes Au Gratin

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Cut a piece from the top of each tomato and scoop out the inside, leaving a hollow shell.

  2. Chop the pulp finely and mix it with the bread crumbs, melted butter, sugar, cayenne, salt, and minced onion.

  3. Fill the cavities of the tomatoes with the stuffing, heaping and rounding each.

Bake and serve

  1. Scatter fine bread crumbs on top and arrange the tomatoes in a baking dish.

  2. Cover the dish and bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 30 minutes.

  3. Uncover and brown lightly, then serve on a hot platter.

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. Bread + buttertop 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 + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Form the shell that holds the stuffing and softens into a juicy base as they bake.
Bread crumbs
Bind the chopped pulp into a stuffing and form a crust that browns on top.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the crumbs and helps them brown.
Onion
Adds savory aroma and flavor to the stuffing.
Sugar
Adds a little sweetness that balances the acidity of the tomatoes.

The step that matters

Uncover and brown lightly. Baking covered first steams the tomatoes so they stay moist and tender. Uncovering only at the end lets the crumbs toast through dry heat, so a short, watched finish gives color without drying or burning the top.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Sweet potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

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