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Escalloped Tomatoes

A baked tomato dish topped with browned bread crumbs and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Escalloped Tomatoes

Why it works: Butter and bread 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

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderately hot oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the crumbs

  1. Reserve 3 tablespoons of the bread crumbs and spread the rest on a pan.

  2. Brown the crumbs in the oven, being careful not to burn them.

Assemble and bake

  1. Mix the tomatoes, browned crumbs, salt, pepper, and half the butter in a bowl.

  2. Transfer the mixture to a shallow baking dish.

  3. Spread the unbrowned crumbs on top and dot with the remaining butter cut into bits.

  4. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes until the top is brown and crisp.

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. Butter + breadtop 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. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

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

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Provide the moist, acidic base that softens and forms the body of the dish.
Bread crumbs
Absorb tomato liquid and toast to form a crisp, browned topping.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the crumbs brown evenly in the oven.

The step that matters

Browning the crumbs. Crumbs toast quickly and turn bitter once scorched, so they need watching in the oven. Toasting them first gives a deeper, nutty flavour and a crisper top than raw crumbs would.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, bread, 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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