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Fried Tomatoes in Batter

Fried tomato slices coated with paprika, salt, sugar, onion juice, and cornmeal, served dry with fish or chops.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 20,633 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Fried Tomatoes in Batter

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 the tomatoes

  1. Wash and wipe the tomatoes, but do not peel them.

  2. Slice the tomatoes and dust each piece with paprika, coarse sea salt, and sugar, then sprinkle with a few drops of onion juice.

Coat and fry

  1. Dip the slices in fine cornmeal.

  2. In a deep pan, heat cooking oil to 400°F (200°C).

  3. Fry the coated tomato slices until golden brown.

Serve

  1. Serve dry with fish or chops.

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

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

  2. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Tomato + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Ripe tomatoes
Provide a juicy centre that softens inside while the coating crisps outside.
Fine cornmeal
Forms a crisp, golden coating that browns during frying.
Cooking oil
Conducts heat to cook the slices quickly and brown the cornmeal coating.

The step that matters

Frying at 400°F (200°C). Oil that is too cool lets the cornmeal soak up grease and turn soggy, while oil that is too hot browns the coating before the tomato warms through. Hold the heat steady and fry until the coating is golden.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, flour, milk, egg, sugar):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, flour, milk, egg, 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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