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Scalloped Tomatoes

Scalloped tomatoes are baked tomatoes seasoned with salt, pepper, onion juice, optional sugar, and buttered cracker crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Scalloped Tomatoes

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 ↓

Scalloped Tomatoes

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Remove contents from the can of tomatoes and drain some of the liquid.

  2. Season the tomatoes with salt, pepper, onion juice, and sugar if desired.

Assemble

  1. Grease a baking dish with butter and cover the bottom with buttered cracker crumbs.

  2. Layer the seasoned tomatoes on top of the crumbs.

  3. Sprinkle the top thickly with more buttered crumbs.

Bake

  1. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) until the crumbs are 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Provide the juicy, acidic base that forms the body of the dish.
Butter cracker crumbs
Form a crisp, golden topping and base that soaks up some tomato liquid.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the crumbs brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Draining the tomatoes. Too much liquid left in the tomatoes will make the dish soggy and keep the crumbs from crisping. Draining some of it lets the topping brown properly and the layers hold together.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, pepper, sugar, 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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