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Tomato Scramble

A scrambled egg dish with tomatoes, onions, parsley, and cream served on lettuce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Lettuce and endive match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 284 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Tomato Scramble

Ingredients

Directions

Make the scramble

  1. Melt the butter in a pan.

  2. Add the chopped onion and cook until tender.

  3. Stir in the chopped tomatoes and parsley, then simmer for 3 minutes.

  4. Add the beaten eggs and cream, then stir slowly for 3 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve on lettuce.

  2. Garnish with endive and radishes.

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. Lettuce + endivetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together284 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  2. Parsley + lettucetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,483 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  3. Parsley + endivetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together107 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  4. Tomato + lettucetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,655 recipes

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

  5. Onion + lettucetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,562 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set into soft curds that give the scramble its body.
Butter
Adds richness and carries the onion while it softens.
Tomatoes
Add moisture and a bright, acidic flavor to the scramble.
Cream
Adds richness and a softer, more tender texture to the eggs.
Onion
Adds savory sweetness and aroma as it cooks until tender.

The step that matters

Stir slowly over the heat for the eggs. Eggs set from the edges inward as they cook. Stirring slowly keeps the curds large and soft; stirring hard or over high heat can make them dry, tough, or watery.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, onion, parsley, egg, cream, lettuce, endive):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, onion, parsley, egg, cream, lettuce, endive. 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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