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Devilled Tomatoes

A tomato dish with a buttery, tangy sauce and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,259 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Devilled Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Fry the tomatoes

  1. Fry the tomato slices in 2 tablespoons of butter until hot, without peeling.

Make the sauce

  1. In a separate pan, melt the remaining 2 tablespoons of butter.

  2. Add vinegar, onion juice, sugar, mustard, salt, and paprika to the melted butter.

  3. Slowly add the beaten egg yolks, stirring constantly.

  4. Combine the sauce with the fried tomatoes and serve hot.

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. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  2. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Tomato + mustardtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,482 recipes

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

  5. Vinegar + oniontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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 juicy, slightly acidic flavor of the dish.
Butter
Adds richness and fat for frying the tomatoes and forming the sauce base.
Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce as they cook gently, giving it a smooth, creamy body.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that balances the richness of the butter and yolks.

The step that matters

Slowly add the beaten egg yolks, stirring constantly. Egg yolks scramble if they meet heat too quickly. Adding them slowly while stirring keeps the mixture smooth and lets the sauce thicken evenly.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, vinegar, onion, sugar, mustard, egg):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, vinegar, onion, sugar, mustard, egg. 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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