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Scrambled Eggs with Tomato

Scrambled eggs cooked with tomato juice, butter, flour, and seasonings, served over toast.

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 ↓

Scrambled Eggs with Tomato

Ingredients

Directions

Make the tomato base

  1. Melt the butter in a frying pan over medium heat.

  2. Stir in the flour until well blended.

  3. Add the strained tomato juice and bring to a simmer.

Scramble and serve

  1. Break the eggs into the pan and stir gently while cooking.

  2. Continue stirring until the eggs are fully scrambled.

  3. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

  4. Serve the scrambled eggs on 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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Eggs
Set into soft curds that give the dish its main structure and body.
All-purpose flour
Thickens the melted butter and tomato juice, giving the sauce a smoother body.
Strained tomato juice
Provides the liquid base and tomato flavor, with acidity that brightens the eggs.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps keep the eggs tender in the pan.

The step that matters

Continue stirring until the eggs are fully scrambled. Eggs proteins set as they heat, so stirring gently and keeping the heat moderate keeps curds soft and even. Overcooking makes them dry and rubbery.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

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