Name: Browned or Fried Tomatoes
Ingredients: large tomatoes; flour; lard; salt; pepper

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 ↓

Browned or Fried Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Cut the tomatoes in half.
Dust the cut sides with flour.
Melt a small amount of lard in a frying pan.
Place the tomatoes cut side down in the pan.
Sprinkle with salt and pepper.
Brown one side, then carefully turn and brown the other side.
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.

Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,923 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together50,459 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Tomato + flourtop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,065 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).