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Dessert

Tomato Custard

A custard made with stewed tomatoes, eggs, milk, sugar, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Tomato Custard

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Strain the stewed tomatoes through a sieve.

Make the custard

  1. In a bowl, combine the strained tomatoes, beaten eggs, milk, sugar, and flour. Mix well until smooth.

  2. Pour the mixture into small baking tins.

Bake

  1. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until set.

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. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

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

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Eggs
Set the custard as they cook, giving it a firm, sliceable structure.
Milk
Adds liquid and richness, producing a soft, tender custard texture.
Stewed tomatoes
Provide the main flavour and liquid base of the custard.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and balances the acidity of the tomatoes.
Flour
Thickens the custard slightly and helps keep it smooth.

The step that matters

Bake until set. Eggs set as their proteins coagulate with heat. Underbaking leaves the custard runny, while overbaking makes it grainy and watery as the egg proteins tighten and squeeze out liquid.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Arrowrootfits better
  2. Sweet potatofits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk, sugar, flour. 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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