Skip to main content
Main

Fried Tomatoes

Fried tomatoes coated in flour and butter, finished with cream and egg yolks.

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

Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Fried Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the tomatoes into thick slices.

  2. Dredge the slices in flour.

Fry and simmer

  1. Melt the butter in a skillet and fry the tomatoes until brown.

  2. Cover the fried tomatoes with cream and bring to a gentle boil.

  3. Carefully remove the tomatoes to a hot platter.

Finish and serve

  1. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks and stir them into the hot cream.

  2. Pour the cream mixture over the tomatoes and serve immediately.

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 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 + creamtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

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
Main ingredient; frying browns the flour-coated slices and softens their texture.
Flour
Dry coating that helps the tomato slices brown in the butter.
Butter
Fat for frying that adds richness and helps the slices brown.
Cream
Forms the sauce base and adds richness and moisture.
Egg yolks
Thicken the warm cream into a sauce and add richness.

The step that matters

Stirring the egg yolks into the hot cream. Egg yolks thicken when heated gently but can scramble if the cream is boiling hard or the yolks are added without tempering. Stir steadily and avoid a hard boil so the sauce stays smooth.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, cream, 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.

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