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Browned Tomatoes

Tomatoes are browned in butter and lard after being halved, salted, peppered, and dredged in flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Browned Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Halve the tomatoes and place them skin side down in a frying pan.

  2. Melt a small amount of butter and lard in the pan.

  3. Sprinkle the tomatoes with salt and pepper, then dredge with flour.

Brown and cook

  1. Place the pan on a hot part of the stove and let the tomatoes brown thoroughly.

  2. Stir and let them brown again, repeating until fully cooked.

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. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + buttertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,918 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

Flour
Coats the tomato surfaces, helping them brown and forming a light crust.
Butter
Adds fat and flavour and helps the tomato surfaces brown in the pan.
Lard
Adds fat that tolerates the heat of the pan well, supporting even browning.

The step that matters

Letting the tomatoes brown thoroughly. Browning depends on direct contact with hot fat and a dry surface. Stirring too early or crowding the pan causes steaming, which leaves the tomatoes pale and soft instead of caramelised.

Swap the tomato

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

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

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