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Fried Tomatoes

Fried tomatoes are tomato slices coated in egg and crackers, then fried in lard and seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice and peel the tomatoes.

  2. Beat the egg in a bowl.

Coat and fry

  1. Dip each tomato slice in the egg, then coat with rolled crackers.

  2. Fry the coated slices in lard until golden brown.

  3. Season with coarse sea salt and black pepper to taste.

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. Egg + peppertop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together50,580 recipes

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

  3. Tomato + eggtop 34% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,890 recipes

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

Egg and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 50,580 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 and juicy filling that the coating surrounds.
Egg
Binds the cracker crumbs to the tomato slices so the coating stays on during frying.
Rolled crackers
Form a crisp, golden crust that browns in the hot fat.
Lard
Conducts heat to brown the coating and adds rich flavor to the crust.

The step that matters

Fry the coated slices in lard until golden brown. Frying at a steady, hot temperature sets the egg and cracker coating quickly and browns it. If the fat is too cool, the coating absorbs oil and turns greasy and soft, and the tomato releases more moisture into it.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, 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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