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Deviled Tomatoes

Deviled tomatoes are baked tomato slices coated in a mustard‑butter sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and tomato 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 ↓

Deviled Tomatoes

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the sauce and assemble

  1. Make a sauce by mixing French mustard, butter, pepper sauce, currant jelly, and salt in a bowl.

  2. Peel the tomatoes and cut them into thick slices.

  3. Dip each slice in the sauce and lay them in a baking dish.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for 15 minutes.

  2. Carefully transfer the tomatoes to a serving dish and pour the hot remaining sauce over them.

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. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Mustard + tomatotop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,482 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Mustard + saucetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,120 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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

Large firm tomatoes
Provide the main body of the dish, and their moisture softens slightly as they bake.
French mustard
Adds a sharp, tangy bite that cuts through the richness of the butter.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps the sauce coat the tomato slices.
Currant jelly
Adds sweetness that balances the heat of the pepper sauce and the sharpness of the mustard.
Pepper sauce
Adds heat and a pungent, savoury flavour to the sauce.

The step that matters

Carefully transfer the tomatoes to a serving dish and pour the hot remaining sauce over them.. Firm slices hold their shape best when handled gently. The butter-based sauce is best poured hot so it stays fluid and coats the surface evenly rather than separating or pooling.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mustard, butter, pepper, sauce, tomato):

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mustard, butter, pepper, sauce, tomato. 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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