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Fried Tomatoes

Fried tomatoes are tomato halves coated in batter and fried until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Fried Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel and cut the tomatoes in half.

  2. Make a batter by mixing flour, eggs, and sweet milk (or water).

  3. Dip the tomato halves in the batter.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat lard or butter in a pan.

  2. Fry the battered tomatoes in the hot lard or butter until golden.

  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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Tomato + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 of the dish.
Flour
Forms the batter that coats the tomatoes and crisps when fried.
Eggs
Bind the batter so it clings to the tomato halves.
Sweet milk or water
Thins the batter to a coating consistency.
Lard or butter
Fat for frying that browns the batter and adds flavor.

The step that matters

Frying the battered tomatoes. The fat must be hot enough to set the batter quickly and brown it. If the fat is too cool, the batter absorbs oil, turns greasy, and the tomato releases juices that soften the coating.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, egg, milk, 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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