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Scalloped Tomatoes

A baked tomato dish thickened with crumbs and cream, seasoned with salt and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Scalloped Tomatoes

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 ↓

Scalloped Tomatoes

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 tomatoes

  1. Rub the tomatoes through a colander.

Assemble and bake

  1. Thicken the tomatoes with the bread or cracker crumbs.

  2. Add salt, cream or sweet milk, and bits of butter.

  3. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 20 to 30 minutes.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

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

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Tomato + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,013 recipes

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

  4. Tomato + buttertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,918 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Bread + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,789 recipes

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

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, moisture and tart flavor of the dish.
Bread or cracker crumbs
Absorb the tomato liquid and thicken the mixture as it bakes.
Cream or sweet milk
Adds richness and softens the texture, mellowing the tomato acidity.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the top brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Thicken the tomatoes with the crumbs. Crumbs need time to absorb the tomato liquid before baking. Adding too little leaves the dish watery, while too many make it stiff and dry.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Onionfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, cream, butter. 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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