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Queen's Tomato Pie

A baked pie of stewed tomatoes, onions, and breadcrumbs, topped with butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Queen's Tomato Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the filling

  1. Slice the tomatoes.

  2. Gently stew them with ½ ounce butter, chopped onions, pepper, and salt for 10 minutes.

  3. Stir in the parsley.

  4. Soak the breadcrumbs in enough hot milk to moisten them.

  5. Mix in the beaten eggs.

Assemble and bake

  1. Grease a pie dish.

  2. Layer breadcrumbs.

  3. Layer tomatoes.

  4. Repeat until full, finishing with breadcrumbs on top.

  5. Dot the remaining butter on top of the pie.

  6. Bake at 400°F (200°C) until lightly brown.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  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. Tomato + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,398 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Breadcrumbs
Provide the bulk and structure, absorbing the hot milk to form a soft layered body.
Eggs
Bind the moistened crumbs and set as the pie bakes, holding the layers together.
Tomatoes
Supply moisture, acidity and the main flavour of the filling.
Onions
Add aroma and savoury sweetness as they soften during stewing.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and helps the top brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Soaking the breadcrumbs in hot milk. Breadcrumbs absorb liquid and swell. Too much milk makes the pie soggy and loose, while too little leaves dry crumbs that do not bind well with the eggs.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, tomato, butter, pepper, milk, parsley. 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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