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Baked Tomatoes

A baked dish of layered tomatoes, onions, and mangoes topped with cracker crumbs, salt, pepper, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and mango match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 225 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Baked Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Assemble

  1. Butter a baking dish and layer slices of tomatoes, onions, and mangoes.

  2. Add a layer of cracker crumbs and season with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

  3. Repeat the layers until the dish is full.

  4. Dot the top layer of crumbs with butter.

Bake

  1. Bake for one hour.

  2. Use canned tomatoes and pimentos in winter.

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 + mangotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together225 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Mango + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together471 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Provide the juicy base that softens and releases moisture as the dish bakes.
Mangoes
Add sweetness and a fruity aroma that contrasts with the tart tomatoes.
Onions
Contribute savory depth and aroma as they soften during baking.
Cracker crumbs
Absorb the tomato juices and set into a layered, slightly crisp topping.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the top crumbs brown in the oven.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, mango, 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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