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Scalloped Tomatoes

A baked dish of sliced tomatoes with bread, white sauce, sugar, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Scalloped Tomatoes

Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Scalloped Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Layer the sliced tomatoes and broken bread in a baking dish.

  3. Pour the white sauce over the layers.

  4. Sprinkle the tomatoes with granulated sugar.

  5. Dust the top with fine bread crumbs and season with salt and pepper.

  6. Dot with bits of butter.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake for 30 minutes or until nicely browned.

  2. Serve in the baking dish.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Sauce + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Sauce and butter 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

Ripe tomatoes
Provide the main body, moisture and bright acidic flavour of the dish.
Stale bread
Soaks up the tomato juices and white sauce, giving the dish a soft, pudding-like body.
White sauce
Adds richness and moisture that binds the tomatoes and bread together.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the tomatoes and tempers their acidity.
Fine bread crumbs
Form a crisp, browned crust on the top during baking.

The step that matters

Bake until nicely browned. Baking long enough lets the surface brown through caramelisation and the juices thicken and set. Underbaking leaves the dish watery and pale, while overbaking can dry the bread.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, sauce, sugar, pepper, 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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