Name: Escalloped Tomatoes
Ingredients: 1 quart stewed and sifted tomatoes; 2 cups bread crumbs or zwieback, finely rolled; 1 cup nut cream; salt to taste

Why it works: Tomato and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,013 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Escalloped Tomatoes

Ingredients

1 quart stewed and sifted tomatoes
2 cups bread crumbs or zwieback, finely rolled
1 cup nut cream
salt to taste

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

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make and bake

In a bowl, combine the stewed tomatoes, bread crumbs, nut cream, and salt, and mix well until combined.
Transfer the mixture to a baking dish and bake for 20 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.

Tomato + breadtop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,013 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Bread + creamtop 24% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together5,789 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Tomato + creamtop 32% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,034 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Stewed tomatoes: Provide the main body and moisture of the dish.
Bread crumbs or zwieback: Absorb liquid and give the mixture body so it holds together while baking.
Nut cream: Adds richness and fat, softening the texture as it bakes.