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Fried Tomatoes

Fried tomatoes served with a cream sauce thickened with flour and seasoned with cayenne pepper and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut ripe tomatoes in half.

Fry and make the sauce

  1. Fry the tomatoes on both sides in hot lard and butter.

  2. In the frying pan, pour in 1 cup of cream thickened with 2 tablespoons of flour.

  3. Season the cream with a little cayenne pepper and coarse sea salt.

Serve

  1. Pour the sauce over the tomatoes and serve hot.

  2. Optionally, add chopped or grated cold boiled ham.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + hamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Ripe tomatoes
Provide the main body and juicy flesh that softens and browns in the hot fat.
Lard
Conducts high heat for frying and adds savory richness and browning to the tomatoes.
Butter
Adds milky flavor and helps the tomatoes brown in the pan.
Cream
Forms the sauce base that coats the tomatoes and carries seasoning.
Flour
Thickens the cream into a smooth sauce that clings to the tomatoes.

The step that matters

Thickening the cream with flour. Flour must be fully whisked into the cream before or as it heats, otherwise it clumps and leaves a lumpy sauce. Starch thickens the cream as it warms, so the sauce needs gentle heat and steady stirring to reach a smooth, coating consistency.

Swap the tomato

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

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

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