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Tomato Pancakes

A savory pancake made with tomato slices folded into batter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Tomato Pancakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Mix flour, sugar, salt, and baking powder in a bowl.

  2. Add milk and mix until smooth.

  3. Beat the eggs and fold them into the batter.

Cook the pancakes

  1. Slice the tomatoes and season them.

  2. Cover the tomatoes with the batter.

  3. Cook on a griddle until golden brown.

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. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Milk + tomatotop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,226 recipes

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

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Flour
Forms the main structure of the batter as its starch sets when cooked.
Eggs
Bind the batter and help it set firm as it cooks.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the pancakes rise and become light.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and gives the batter its pourable, tender texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the pancake surface brown in the pan.
Tomatoes
Add moisture and a fresh, slightly acidic flavour to the pancakes.

The step that matters

Cook on a griddle until golden brown. If the heat is too high, the outside browns before the batter sets inside, leaving it raw in the middle. Moderate heat lets the batter cook through while the surface turns golden.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, sugar, milk, egg):

  1. Arrowrootfits better
  2. Sweet potatofits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, milk, 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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