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Esoaloped Tomatoes

A baked tomato dish layered with buttered cracker crumbs and brown sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Esoaloped 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. Scald the tomatoes and remove the skin.

  2. Butter an earthen baking dish and line it with a layer of cracker crumbs and small bits of butter.

Layer

  1. Add a layer of tomatoes with a sprinkle of brown sugar.

  2. Top with another layer of cracker crumbs seasoned with butter, pepper, and coarse sea salt.

  3. Repeat layers until the dish is filled, finishing with a layer of cracker crumbs.

  4. Dot the top with flakes of butter.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes.

  2. For an improvement, pour 1 to 2 tablespoons of rich cream over the top layer 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. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Provide the juicy base that softens and forms the sauce as the dish bakes.
Cracker crumbs
Absorb tomato juice and bind the layers, giving a soft, spoonable texture.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that helps the top brown and the crumbs taste savory.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the acidity of the tomatoes.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, pepper, cream. 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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