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Fried Tomatoes with Brown Gravy

A dish of sliced tomatoes fried in lard and served over a brown gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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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 ↓

Fried Tomatoes with Brown Gravy

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Wipe the tomatoes with a wet cloth and slice them ½ inch thick.

  2. Cover the slices with flour seasoned with salt and pepper.

Fry

  1. Heat lard in a pan until it is smoking hot, about ½ inch deep.

  2. Fry the tomatoes in the hot lard, browning them on both sides carefully.

  3. Transfer the fried tomatoes to a hot dish and repeat with remaining slices.

  4. Pour out the lard, saving it for future use.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. In the same pan, add 1 tablespoon of flour and 1 tablespoon of butter; stir until brown.

  2. Gradually stir in 2 cups of boiling water and season with salt and pepper.

  3. Let the gravy boil for 2 minutes, then pour it onto a deep platter.

  4. Lay the fried tomatoes on top of the gravy without breaking them and 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.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + buttertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,918 recipes

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

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Tomatoes
Firm, ripe slices hold their shape in the hot fat while the outside browns.
Flour
Coats the slices so they brown, and thickens the gravy with the butter.
Lard
Hot fat conducts heat for frying and browns the flour-coated tomato surface.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour to the gravy and helps it brown with the flour.

The step that matters

Fry the tomatoes in the hot lard. Lard must be smoking hot so the flour coating sears quickly and browns. If the fat is too cool, the slices absorb more fat, turn greasy, and can fall apart when turned.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

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