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Scrambled Eggs with Tomatoes

A quick scrambled egg dish flavored with tomato juice or puree, onion, and celery salt, served with bread and green vegetables.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,377 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Scrambled Eggs with Tomatoes

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the egg mixture

  1. In a bowl, beat the eggs until well mixed.

  2. Add the tomato juice or puree, grated onion, and celery salt. Mix well.

Cook and serve

  1. Heat a non-stick skillet over medium heat.

  2. Pour the egg mixture into the skillet and cook gently, stirring occasionally, until just set.

  3. Serve with bread and green vegetables.

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 + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

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

  2. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  3. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  5. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set into soft curds that form the main body of the dish.
Tomato juice or tomato puree
Adds moisture and tomato flavour, keeping the eggs tender as they cook.
Grated onion
Adds savoury aroma and a little moisture to the eggs.

The step that matters

Cook gently until just set. Egg proteins tighten and squeeze out water when overheated, so high heat or overcooking makes scrambled eggs dry and rubbery. Gentle heat with occasional stirring keeps curds soft and moist.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, tomato, celery, pepper, bread):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, tomato, celery, pepper, bread. 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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