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Scolloped Tomatoes

A baked tomato dish with bread crumbs, salt, and red pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 ↓

Scolloped Tomatoes

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Scald and peel the ripe tomatoes.

Assemble and bake

  1. Layer the tomatoes in a dish with bread crumbs, seasoning each layer with coarse sea salt and red pepper.

  2. Top with a final layer of bread crumbs.

  3. Bake in a 300°F (150°C) oven for three hours.

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. Tomato + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,013 recipes

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

  3. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

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

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 moisture that soften and form the dish.
Bread crumbs
Absorb tomato juices and help the dish set into a soft, spoonable texture.

The step that matters

Long, low baking. Baking at 300°F for three hours lets the tomato liquid evaporate slowly while the bread crumbs absorb it, so the dish thickens gently without drying or scorching.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatothe original
  3. Spinachfits less well
  4. Carrotfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, pepper. 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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