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Tomato Toast

A toast topped with a tomato and egg mixture seasoned with sugar, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 Toast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Brown the tomato in a pan.

  2. Add a pinch of white sugar, salt, and pepper.

  3. Beat the yolk of one egg.

  4. Mix the beaten yolk slowly with the tomato, but do not let it boil.

Serve

  1. Spread the mixture on buttered toast.

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 + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + peppertop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,401 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + eggtop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together50,580 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + sugartop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,667 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Sugar and pepper 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

Ripe tomato
Provides the main body, moisture, and sweet-savoury flavour of the topping.
Egg yolk
Thickens the tomato mixture into a creamy spread as it gently sets.
White sugar
Adds a touch of sweetness that balances the tomato's acidity.

The step that matters

Mix the beaten yolk slowly with the tomato, but do not let it boil.. Egg yolk proteins set with heat and can scramble if the mixture gets too hot. Adding the yolk slowly and keeping the heat low keeps the topping smooth and creamy rather than grainy.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, pepper, egg. 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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