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Escalloped Tomatoes

A baked tomato dish topped with a buttered breadcrumb mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Escalloped Tomatoes

Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Escalloped Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Layer tomatoes in a dish and sprinkle with salt and pepper.

  2. In a bowl, mix bread crumbs, butter, salt, pepper, and sugar, then rub the butter into the crumbs and combine well.

Assemble

  1. Spread the mixture over the tomatoes and add another layer of tomatoes.

  2. Dot the top with bits of butter, dust with pepper and sugar, and cover with dry crumbs.

Bake

  1. Bake covered for 30 minutes, then uncover and cook until browned.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

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

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 moisture that softens and cooks down under the crumbs.
Bread crumbs
Absorb tomato juices and form a crisp, golden topping as they brown.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the crumbs brown evenly in the oven.
Sugar
Balances the acidity of the tomatoes and encourages browning on the top.

The step that matters

Bake covered, then uncover. Baking covered first traps steam so the tomatoes cook through; uncovering then lets moisture escape so the crumbs can brown rather than stay soggy.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits about as well
  3. Sweet potatofits about as well
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, bread, butter, 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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