Name: Tomato Toast
Ingredients: 1 quart peeled and cut tomatoes; 2 teaspoons salt; ½ teaspoon pepper; 2 tablespoons butter; well-toasted slices of bread

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 ↓

Tomato Toast

Ingredients

Directions

Make the tomato sauce

Boil the tomatoes for 10 minutes, then strain them.
Return the strained tomatoes to a saucepan and add salt, pepper, and butter.
Cook on the fire for 5 minutes.

Serve

Cover the bottom of a hot platter with the toasted bread slices.
Pour the hot tomato mixture over the toast and serve immediately.
Optionally, top each slice with a dropped or poached egg.

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.

Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,923 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Tomato + breadtop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,013 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,964 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Pepper + buttertop 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 main body and acidic flavor of the sauce once cooked down.
Butter: Adds fat and richness, rounding out the tomato's acidity.
Bread: Acts as a crisp base that the hot sauce soaks into.