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Baking

Tomatoes

A baked casserole of boiled cucumbers, onions, tomatoes, pepper, and salt, thickened with bread crumbs and topped with butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,405 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Cut the cucumbers and onion into very small pieces.

  2. Boil the cucumbers and onion until soft.

Make the filling

  1. Add the peeled and chopped tomatoes, along with pepper and salt.

  2. Boil until done.

  3. If any is left, thicken it with bread crumbs.

Bake

  1. Place in a deep dish.

  2. Sprinkle with bread crumbs and a little butter on top.

  3. Bake.

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. Cucumber + tomatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,405 recipes

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

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  4. Cucumber + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,050 recipes

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

  5. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Provide the main bulk and a fresh, watery body that softens when boiled.
Tomatoes
Add moisture and acidity, thickening into a sauce as they cook down.
Onion
Adds savory depth and aroma as it softens.
Bread crumbs
Absorb excess liquid and thicken the mixture, then brown on top.
Butter
Adds fat and richness and helps the crumb topping brown.

The step that matters

Boil until done. Tomatoes and cucumbers release a lot of water. Cooking them down until thickened keeps the bake from being soupy, and the bread crumbs can only absorb so much liquid.

Swap the cucumber

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, tomato, pepper, bread, butter. 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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