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Tomatoes on Toast

Tomatoes on Toast is a baked tomato topping served on buttered toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Tomatoes on Toast

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.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a buttered sauté pan or baking dish, layer the sliced tomatoes.

Bake

  1. Season with salt, pepper, and lemon juice.

  2. Sprinkle the bread crumbs over the tomatoes.

  3. Place a small piece of butter on each tomato slice.

  4. Bake for 15 minutes.

Serve

  1. Prepare buttered toast and place the baked tomatoes on top.

  2. Pour the pan juices over the dish before serving.

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 + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Tomato + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,013 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Tomato + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,592 recipes

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

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 and juices that soften and collect in the pan during baking.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, helping the tomatoes and crumbs brown lightly in the oven.
White bread crumbs
Soak up the tomato juices and form a light, slightly crisp topping as they bake.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness of the tomatoes.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Asparagusfits about as well
  3. Shallotfits about as well
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, lemon, bread, butter. 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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