Why it works: Tomato and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 22% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,918 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓
Escalloped Tomatoes
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Assemble and bake
Put the stewed tomatoes in a baking dish and season them.
Moisten the cracker crumbs with melted butter and spread them over the tomatoes.
Bake for 30 minutes or until well browned.
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.
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Tomato + buttertop 22% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,918 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Stewed tomatoes
- Provide the moist, acidic base that the topping sits on and bakes into.
- Cracker crumbs
- Form a crisp topping that absorbs some juice and browns in the oven.
- Melted butter
- Coats the crumbs so they brown evenly and taste rich.
The step that matters
Bake until well browned. Baking long enough lets the buttered crumbs toast and the tomato liquid thicken slightly. Underbaking leaves the topping pale and the dish soggy.
“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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