Skip to main content
Main

Mushrooms- and Tomatoes on Toast

A toasted bread topped with sautéed tomatoes and mushrooms, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Mushrooms- and Tomatoes on Toast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the bread into rounds and toast it.

  2. Butter the toasted bread.

  3. Slice the tomatoes and remove the gills from the mushrooms.

Cook the topping

  1. Heat butter in a frying pan and fry the tomatoes and mushrooms with a little seasoning.

Assemble and serve

  1. Place a slice of tomato on each piece of toast, topped with a mushroom.

  2. Put the assembled toast in the oven to heat through 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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Tomato + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,719 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

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

  5. Bread + tomatotop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,013 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

Bread
Provides a crisp base that holds the topping without going soggy.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the toast brown and carry flavour.
Tomatoes
Add juicy acidity and moisture that brightens the rich mushrooms.
Mushrooms
Provide savoury, earthy flavour and a tender, meaty texture.

The step that matters

Frying the tomatoes and mushrooms. Frying over heat drives off excess water so the topping stays firm rather than soaking the toast. Cooking until the moisture has evaporated concentrates flavour and prevents a watery result.

Swap the tomato

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

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

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

You might also like

Meatless Tomato SoupMeatless Tomato Soup23 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipes