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Escaloped Tomatoes

A baked tomato dish layered with bread crumbs, butter, sugar, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Escaloped Tomatoes

Why it works: Bread and butter 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 ↓

Escaloped 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. Layer half of the tomatoes in a baking dish and sprinkle with salt and pepper.

  2. Dot with butter, then add a layer of bread crumbs.

  3. Repeat the layers until all ingredients are used, finishing with crumbs and butter on top.

Bake

  1. If using fresh tomatoes, bake for 1 hour; if using canned, bake for 30 minutes.

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. Bread + buttertop 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. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Provide the juicy liquid that softens the crumbs and forms the sauce as it bakes.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the tomato juices and set into a soft, layered, slightly crisp topping.
Butter
Adds fat and richness and helps the top crumbs brown as they bake.
Sugar
Balances the acidity of the tomatoes and adds mild sweetness.

The step that matters

Layering the tomatoes and crumbs. Tomatoes release a lot of liquid as they heat. Even layering lets the crumbs absorb that juice evenly, so the dish sets into a cohesive casserole rather than a watery one.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, sugar, 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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