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Fried Tomatoes

Fried tomatoes are tomato slices coated in cracker dust, fried in butter, and served with parsley garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Fried Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the tomatoes about ¼ inch thick, keeping the skin on.

  2. Roll the slices in powdered cracker dust, then season with salt and pepper.

Cook and serve

  1. Fry the coated tomato slices in hot butter until they are a delicate brown.

  2. Serve on a platter garnished with parsley leaves.

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 + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  3. Tomato + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,398 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Provide the main body of the dish, softening slightly while keeping their shape when sliced thick.
Powdered cracker dust
Forms a crisp coating that browns in the hot butter and holds the tomato slices together.
Butter
Conducts heat to the coating and adds richness and browning flavor.

The step that matters

Fry the coated tomato slices in hot butter. The butter must be hot enough to brown the cracker coating quickly. If the pan is too cool, the tomato releases moisture, the coating soaks up butter and turns soggy instead of crisp.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, butter, parsley. 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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