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Fried Tomatoes

Fried tomatoes are sliced green tomatoes coated in breadcrumbs and egg, then fried in butter and seasoned with pepper, salt, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter 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 ↓

Fried Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Slice the large green tomatoes.

  2. Roll the slices in bread crumbs, beaten egg, or flour.

  3. Fry in hot butter over medium heat.

  4. Season with pepper, coarse sea salt, and a little sugar while frying.

  5. Cook 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. Bread + buttertop 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. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Large green tomatoes
Provide the main body of the dish, firm enough to hold shape while frying.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp coating that browns in the hot butter and protects the tomato interior.
Egg
Binds the coating to the tomato slices so the crumbs stay in place while frying.
Butter
Conducts heat for frying and adds richness and browning to the coating.
Sugar
Adds a little sweetness that helps the surface brown and balances the tart green tomato.

The step that matters

Fry over medium heat until golden brown. Medium heat lets the coating brown through Maillard browning while the tomato softens inside. Too high a heat scorches the butter and crumbs before the tomato cooks through, and too low leaves the coating greasy and pale.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, egg, 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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