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Scalloped Tomatoes

A baked dish of layered sliced tomatoes with butter, breadcrumbs, salt, pepper, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Scalloped Tomatoes

Why it works: Tomato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Scalloped Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and layer

  1. Butter the sides of a small pudding dish.

  2. Add a layer of breadcrumbs to the bottom.

  3. Layer sliced tomatoes on top, sprinkling with coarse sea salt, black pepper, bits of butter, and a little white sugar.

  4. Repeat layers until the dish is full, finishing with sliced tomatoes and bits of butter on top.

Bake and serve

  1. Cover the dish and bake until thoroughly cooked.

  2. Remove the cover and brown quickly.

  3. Serve hot.

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

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

  2. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Butter + tomatotop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,918 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + sugartop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,401 recipes

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

Pepper and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,401 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Breadcrumbs
Soak up tomato juices and give the layers a soft, absorbent body.
Sliced tomatoes
Provide the main moisture and acidic, savory flavor that cooks down into the sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the top layer brown in the oven.
White sugar
Softens the tomatoes' acidity and supports browning on top.

The step that matters

Remove the cover and brown quickly. Uncovered, the surface dries and browns, while covered baking traps steam. Browning too long can dry the dish or scorch the butter, so watch it closely.

Swap the tomato

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

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

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