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Tomato Scallop

A baked tomato casserole topped with cracker crumbs 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 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 ↓

Tomato Scallop

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.

Make the tomato base

  1. Pour the can of tomatoes into a saucepan and cook for about 10 minutes, seasoning with salt, pepper, sugar, and baking soda.

  2. Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).

Assemble and bake

  1. Grease a baking dish with butter.

  2. Layer the cooked tomatoes in the dish, sprinkle with cracker crumbs, and dot with pieces of butter.

  3. Repeat the layers until the dish is full, finishing with a layer of buttered crumbs on top.

  4. Bake for about 30 minutes, then uncover and brown the top.

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  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. Pepper + sugartop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,401 recipes

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

Pepper and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,401 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

Tomatoes
Provide the moist, acidic body of the dish that softens and forms the sauce.
Cracker crumbs
Absorb tomato liquid and add structure, giving the layers body and a crisp top.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the crumb topping brown in the oven.
Sugar
Balances the tomatoes' acidity with a touch of sweetness.
Baking soda
Neutralizes some of the tomatoes' acidity, mellowing the flavor and deepening color.

The step that matters

Browning the top. The final uncovered stage is what gives the crumb topping its color and crispness. If the dish stays covered, the top stays pale and soft, so the cook should uncover it before the bake ends.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, sugar, 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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