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Fried Tomatoes

Slices of tomato coated in egg and cracker crumbs, fried until browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 118,967 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Fried Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash and slice the tomatoes about ½ inch thick.

  2. Sprinkle salt on each slice.

  3. Dip each slice in the beaten egg, then coat with cracker crumbs.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat a generous amount of coconut oil and butter in a frying pan until hot.

  2. Place the coated tomatoes in the pan and fry until nicely browned.

  3. Turn the tomatoes and brown the other side.

  4. Lift with two forks or a pancake turner and serve.

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. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

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

  3. Tomato + eggtop 34% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,890 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Large ripe tomatoes
Provide the main body of the dish and release moisture that steams under the coating.
Beaten egg
Acts as a binder so the cracker crumbs stick to the tomato slices.
Cracker crumbs
Form a crisp coating that browns in the hot fat and contrasts with the soft tomato.
Cottolene or butter
Conducts heat for frying and adds richness and browning to the crust.

The step that matters

Frying in hot fat. The pan must be hot before the coated slices go in. Hot fat sets the crumb coating quickly and browns it, while a cool pan lets the coating soak up oil and turn greasy and soft.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, 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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