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Tomato and Onion Pie

A baked pie with layers of sliced onions and tomatoes, seasoned with salt, pepper, breadcrumbs, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Tomato and Onion Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the onions

  1. Peel the onions.

  2. Cover the onions with boiling water for at least 2 hours.

  3. Drain and dry the onions thoroughly.

  4. Slice the onions.

  5. Heat the butter in a frying pan and fry the onions until lightly browned.

Assemble the pie

  1. Slice the tomatoes.

  2. Layer the tomatoes and onions alternately in a buttered pie dish.

  3. Sprinkle each layer lightly with salt, pepper, and breadcrumbs.

  4. Cover the top with a good layer of breadcrumbs and add a few small pieces of butter on top.

Bake

  1. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for about 1 hour.

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. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  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

Onions
Soften and sweeten as they cook, adding savory depth to the layers.
Tomatoes
Provide moisture and acidity that bake down into the filling.
Breadcrumbs
Absorb juices from the tomatoes and onions and form a crisp, browned topping.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the top brown as it bakes.

The step that matters

Drain and dry the onions thoroughly. Surface water left on the onions thins the filling and makes the pie soggy. Drying them well lets the frying brown the onions and keeps the layers from releasing excess liquid in the oven.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, butter, pepper. 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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