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Egg and Tomato Sandwiches

A sandwich made with eggs, tomatoes, butter, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Egg and Tomato Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the tomatoes

  1. Melt the butter in a frying pan over medium heat.

  2. Cook the tomatoes in the butter until most of the liquid has evaporated, then set aside to cool.

  3. If using fresh tomatoes, scald and skin them before cooking.

Make the filling

  1. Beat the eggs and stir them into the cooled tomatoes, adding pepper and salt to taste.

  2. Stir the mixture with a knife until the eggs are set.

  3. Transfer the mixture to a bowl and let it cool before using it for sandwiches.

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

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

  2. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

  4. Tomato + buttertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,918 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Egg + peppertop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together50,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Egg and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 50,580 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set when stirred with heat, binding the tomatoes into a spreadable filling.
Tomatoes
Supply moisture and tangy flavour, which cooking down concentrates.
Butter
Adds fat and richness for cooking the tomatoes without sticking.

The step that matters

Cool the tomatoes before adding the eggs. Eggs begin to set at about 65 to 70 °C, so adding them to hot tomatoes can scramble them unevenly. Cooling the tomatoes first gives a smoother, more even set.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, 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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