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Scalloped Tomatoes and Corn

A baked casserole of corn and tomatoes with bread crumbs, butter, sugar, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Corn and tomato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,099 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Scalloped Tomatoes and Corn

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 corn

  1. Drain the corn.

  2. Cook the corn in boiling salted water for 20 minutes.

  3. Remove the water.

Layer the dish

  1. Cover the bottom of a baking dish with fine bread crumbs.

  2. Layer the corn, butter, pepper, and salt in the dish.

  3. Add a layer of canned tomatoes.

  4. Add more butter and pepper.

  5. Sprinkle with sugar.

  6. Repeat the layers until the dish is full.

  7. Top with bread crumbs.

  8. Dot with butter.

  9. Cover.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes.

  2. Uncover to brown before serving.

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. Corn + tomatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,099 recipes

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

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  4. Bread + tomatotop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,013 recipes

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

  5. Corn + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,324 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Corn
Forms the main body of the dish and adds sweetness and bulk.
Canned tomatoes
Provide moisture and acidity that soften the layers as they bake.
Fine bread crumbs
Give structure to the layers and a crisp, browned topping.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the top brown in the oven.
Sugar
Balances the acidity of the tomatoes with mild sweetness.

The step that matters

Uncover to brown before serving. Baking covered traps steam, so the top stays pale and soft. Removing the cover lets moisture escape and allows the bread crumbs and butter to brown, giving a crisp surface over the moist layers beneath.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits about as well
  3. Tomatothe original
  4. Sweet potatofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against corn, bread, butter, pepper, 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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