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Breaded Tomatoes

Breaded tomatoes are sliced green tomatoes coated in bread crumbs and fried until brown.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,013 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Breaded Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the tomatoes into thick slices.

  2. Dip each slice in seasoned bread crumbs.

  3. Then dip in the beaten egg.

  4. Coat again with bread crumbs.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry in hot fat until brown.

  2. Drain well and serve plain or with a cream sauce.

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 + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,013 recipes

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

  2. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Tomato + eggtop 34% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,890 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Green tomatoes
Provide the main body of the dish, softening slightly while the coating crisps.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, browned crust that protects the tomato slices during frying.
Egg
Binds the bread crumb coating so it adheres to the tomato slices.

The step that matters

Fry in hot fat until brown. If the fat is not hot enough, the coating absorbs oil and turns greasy before it browns. Hot fat sets the crumb crust quickly, keeping the tomato inside moist and the coating crisp.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Shallotfits about as well
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, 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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