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Fried Tomatoes in Batter

Fried tomatoes coated in a batter of flour, milk, and egg, served with fish or chops.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 20,633 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Fried Tomatoes in Batter

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Wash and wipe the tomatoes without peeling them.

  2. Slice the tomatoes and dust each piece with paprika, salt, and sugar. Sprinkle with a few drops of onion juice.

  3. Dip the slices in fine cornmeal.

Batter and fry

  1. In a bowl, mix flour, milk, and egg to make a batter.

  2. Dip the cornmeal-coated tomatoes in the batter.

  3. Fry in deep, hot oil until golden brown.

  4. Serve dry with fish or chops.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

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

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and milk 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

Ripe tomatoes
Provide the main filling and juicy interior that the coating surrounds.
Flour
Forms the batter that crisps and browns around the tomato slices when fried.
Egg
Binds the batter so it coats the tomato slices evenly.
Milk
Thins the batter to a coating consistency and adds browning through milk sugars.
Fine cornmeal
Adds a crunchy, golden crust on the outside of the tomato slices.

The step that matters

Fry in deep, hot oil until golden brown. If the oil is not hot enough, the coating absorbs oil and turns greasy before it crisps. Hot oil seals the crust quickly, keeping the tomato slices from soaking up fat and falling apart.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Sweet potatofits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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