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Tomato Toast

A toast topped with sliced tomatoes, cream or milk, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Tomato Toast

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Rub the tomatoes through a strainer and cook to taste.

  2. Toast the bread and butter it, then place on a hot dish.

  3. Just before serving, add the cream or milk to the tomatoes and pour over the 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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Bread + tomatotop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,013 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Bread + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,789 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Provide the main flavor and a saucy, moist topping once strained and cooked.
Bread
Forms a sturdy base that holds the sauce on top.
Cream or milk
Adds richness and a smoother, creamier texture to the tomato sauce.
Butter
Adds fat and flavor to the toast and helps it brown.

The step that matters

Add the cream or milk just before serving. Tomatoes are acidic, and dairy held hot with them can curdle or separate. Adding the cream at the last moment keeps the sauce smooth.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Onionfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, cream, 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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