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Fried Tomatoes

Fried tomatoes are tomato slices coated in flour and spices, then fried in drippings and lard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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. Wipe and slice the tomatoes into ½-inch thick slices.

  2. In a bowl, mix the flour, brown sugar, black pepper, salt, and cayenne pepper.

  3. Dredge the tomato slices well on both sides with the dry mixture.

Fry

  1. Fry the coated tomato slices in equal parts drippings and lard until golden 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.

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Tomato + flourtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,065 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + peppertop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,401 recipes

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

Sugar and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,401 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

Tomatoes
Provide the main body of the dish, softening as they fry while keeping their shape.
All-purpose flour
Forms a dry coating that browns in the hot fat and gives the slices a crisp crust.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the coating brown more deeply in the fat.
Drippings and lard
Conduct heat for frying and add richness and flavor to the crust.

The step that matters

Fry the coated tomato slices until golden brown. Frying over steady heat sets the flour coating into a crisp crust before the tomato releases too much moisture. If the fat is too cool, the coating absorbs oil and turns greasy; if too hot, it darkens before the tomato softens.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Arrowrootfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, 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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