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Tried Tomato

A sautéed tomato dish finished with a butter‑flour roux and milk or cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Tried Tomato

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Slice the tomatoes without peeling them.

  2. Sprinkle salt and pepper over the slices.

  3. Dust the tomatoes with flour.

Cook and serve

  1. Fry the tomatoes in butter until browned.

  2. Transfer the tomatoes to a hot platter.

  3. Add milk or cream to the remaining butter and juice in the pan.

  4. Bring the mixture to a boil and pour it over the tomatoes.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Tomato + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,226 recipes

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

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
Provide the main body and juice that combine with the butter and milk to form the sauce.
All-purpose flour
Coats the slices and helps the pan juices thicken into a sauce.
Butter
Fat for frying that browns the tomato surfaces and carries flavour into the sauce.
Milk or cream
Adds richness and body, turning the pan juices into a creamy sauce when boiled.

The step that matters

Bringing the mixture to a boil. Flour needs to reach a boil in the liquid to fully thicken the sauce. Boiling too briefly can leave it thin and floury-tasting, while overheating milk or cream can make it scorch or separate.

Swap the tomato

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

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

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