Name: Tomatoes Scalloped
Ingredients: enough tomatoes to fill a quart baking dish; bread crumbs; butter; pepper; coarse sea salt

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 Scalloped

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

Scald and skin the tomatoes.

Assemble

Layer the tomatoes in the bottom of the baking dish.
Cover with a thick layer of bread crumbs, dots of butter, pepper, and salt.
Add another layer of tomatoes.
Finish with a second layer of closely packed bread crumbs, dotted with butter, and sprinkled with pepper and salt.

Bake

Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for 1 to 1 hour and 15 minutes until browned.

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.

Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,923 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Tomato + breadtop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,013 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,964 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes: Form the juicy base that softens and bakes into the dish's moist filling.
Bread crumbs: Absorb tomato juice and form a crisp, browned topping over the layers.
Butter: Adds richness and helps the top crumbs brown in the oven.