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Baked Tomatoes

A baked tomato dish topped with butter, sugar, salt, pepper, and crumbled bread or crackers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Baked 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

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Butter an earthen baking dish.

Layer and bake

  1. Spread a layer of tomatoes on the bottom of the dish.

  2. Sprinkle half the sugar, butter, pepper, and salt over the tomatoes.

  3. Crumble half the roll of bread over the mixture.

  4. Add another layer of tomatoes and repeat with the remaining sugar, butter, pepper, and salt.

  5. Top with the remaining crumbled bread.

  6. Grate cracker or hard brown biscuit on top.

  7. Bake until heated through and golden.

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. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

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

  4. Pepper + biscuittop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together841 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  5. Bread + biscuittop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together319 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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 and juice that softens and moistens the dish as it bakes.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the tomatoes caramelize and brown slightly in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat and richness and helps the topping crisp and brown.
Bread roll
Soaks up tomato juices and forms a soft, layered crumb texture.
Cracker or hard brown biscuit
Forms a crisp, browned topping over the dish.

The step that matters

Baking until heated through and golden. Tomatoes release liquid as they heat, and the bread needs enough oven time to absorb it and brown. Pulling the dish too early leaves it watery; leaving it too long can dry the top and scorch the crumbs.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Sweet potatofits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, pepper, bread, biscuit. 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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