Skip to main content
Main

Fried Tomatoes

Fried tomatoes are sliced tomatoes seasoned, coated in flour, fried, then topped with a butter and milk sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Fried Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Slice the tomatoes without peeling them.

  2. Season with salt and pepper.

  3. Sprinkle flour over the tomatoes.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry in butter until browned.

  2. Place on a hot platter.

  3. In the same pan, heat milk or cream with the butter and juices until boiling.

  4. Pour the hot mixture over the tomatoes.

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

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

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

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

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Tomato + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 main body and juices that combine with the cream sauce.
All-purpose flour
Coats the tomato slices and thickens the pan juices into a light sauce.
Butter
Fat for frying that encourages browning on the tomato slices.
Milk or cream
Adds richness and body to the pan sauce poured over the tomatoes.

The step that matters

Heat the milk or cream until boiling. Boiling the dairy with the butter and juices thickens the flour in the pan and gives a smooth sauce. Stirring helps prevent lumps and scorching, since milk can burn on the base of the pan.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, flour, butter, milk. 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.

More fried tomatoes recipes

and Onions 3 See all 138 →

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipesTomato BisqueTomato Bisque61 recipesCream Tomato SoupCream Tomato Soup28 recipes