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Devilled Tomatoes

A tomato dish topped with a seasoned yolk mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Devilled Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. Rub 1 tablespoon of butter into the pounded yolks of the boiled eggs.

  2. Add the vinegar, salt, mustard, and powdered sugar to the yolks.

  3. Mix the yolks well.

  4. Transfer the mixture to a tin or porcelain saucepan.

  5. Heat the mixture, stirring in the beaten raw egg while heating.

Cook the tomatoes

  1. Heat the remaining butter in a frying pan.

  2. Add the sliced tomatoes to the pan.

  3. Cook the tomatoes over medium heat for 8 minutes, turning them several times.

  4. Place the cooked tomatoes on a hot dish.

Finish and serve

  1. Strain the butter from the frying pan into the dressing.

  2. Stir the dressing well.

  3. Pour the dressing over the tomatoes 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. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 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. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 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 + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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 of the dish, softening and browning gently in butter.
Boiled egg yolks
Form a smooth, rich base that thickens the dressing.
Raw egg
Thickens the dressing as it heats, giving it body and a creamy texture.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavor, and helps the tomatoes brown lightly.
Vinegar
Adds sharpness that balances the richness of the yolks and butter.

The step that matters

Stir in the beaten raw egg while heating the dressing. Egg proteins set with heat, so the dressing thickens smoothly only if it is heated gently and stirred constantly. Too much heat scrambles the egg and leaves lumps.

Swap the tomato

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

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

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