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Tomato Paste for Sandwiches

A thick tomato paste made by cooking tomatoes, then adding butter, breadcrumbs, Parmesan, and egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread 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 ↓

Tomato Paste for Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Make the tomato base

  1. Skin and cut the tomatoes, then cook until tender.

  2. Press the cooked tomatoes through a fine sieve to remove seeds.

Finish and cool

  1. Return the tomato puree to the heat and add butter, bread crumbs, and Parmesan cheese.

  2. Bring to a boil, then quickly stir in the beaten egg.

  3. Remove from heat immediately; do not let it boil after adding the egg.

  4. Transfer the mixture to a bowl and let it cool.

  5. If not using immediately, cover with melted butter.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Butter + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Tomato + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,490 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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 tomato flavor of the paste.
Egg
Sets the mixture into a thick, spreadable paste as it cooks gently.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and help thicken the puree into a paste.
Parmesan cheese
Adds savory, salty flavor and some body to the mixture.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture.

The step that matters

Remove from heat after adding the egg. Once the beaten egg is stirred in, boiling can curdle the proteins, leaving the paste grainy and split instead of smooth and set. Take it off the heat right away.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Tomatothe original
  3. Spinachfits about as well
  4. Chivefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, bread, parmesan cheese, 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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