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Tomatoes Baked

Baked tomatoes seasoned with salt, pepper, and butter, served hot.

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 ↓

Tomatoes Baked

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Wash the tomatoes to remove any grit or sand.

  2. Place the whole tomatoes in a pan and heat them in the stove until the skin cracks.

  3. Remove the tomatoes, peel, and cut them in half.

Layer and serve

  1. Layer the tomato halves in a dish, sprinkling salt, pepper, and 1 teaspoon of butter between layers.

  2. Continue layering until the dish is full.

  3. Serve hot.

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. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Tomato + buttertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,918 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Large smooth tomatoes
Provide the main body and juice that softens and concentrates as they heat.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, carrying flavour through the layers as it melts.

The step that matters

Heating the tomatoes until the skin cracks. Heat loosens the skin from the flesh so it peels cleanly. Heating too little leaves the skin stuck; heating too long turns the tomatoes mushy.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, 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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