Why it works: Tomato and parmesan cheese match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and 2,490 recipes mention both. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓
The recipe
Ingredients
Contains: milk, wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)
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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Slice the tops off the tomatoes and place them in a baking dish with the butter, seasoning with pepper and coarse sea salt.
Make the cheese sauce
In a saucepan, combine the milk, fine wheat flour, and grated Parmesan cheese, then stir until smooth and season with cayenne pepper if desired.
Bake and serve
Bake the tomatoes for about 20 minutes until tender.
Place the baked tomatoes on hot buttered toast.
Pour the cheese sauce over them.
Serve hot.
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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.
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Tomato + parmesan cheesetop 3% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together2,490 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
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Milk + wheattop 3% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together2,416 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).
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Butter + milktop 3% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together81,222 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + parmesan cheesetop 3% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together4,158 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Tomato + peppertop 4% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together17,913 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
- Soften as they bake, becoming tender and releasing juice into the dish.
- Butter
- Adds richness and helps the tomatoes brown lightly in the oven.
- Parmesan cheese
- Melts into the sauce, adding salty, savoury flavour.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base of the cheese sauce.
- Fine wheat flour
- Thickens the milk into a smooth, coating sauce as it heats.
The step that matters
Stir the sauce until smooth. Wheat flour must be fully dispersed in the milk before heating, or it clumps. Stirring as the mixture warms lets the starch swell evenly, so the sauce thickens smoothly rather than turning lumpy.
“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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