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Scrambled Eggs with Tomatoes

Scrambled eggs cooked with butter, seasoned with salt and pepper, served with diced tomato.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Scrambled Eggs with Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Whip the eggs until very light, then mix with milk, salt, and pepper.

  2. Melt the butter in a pan and pour in the egg mixture.

  3. Cook until firm without stirring, easing from the edges of the pan.

Assemble and serve

  1. Dice the tomato and heat it between two plates.

  2. Place half of the tomato on a dish, pour the scrambled eggs over, and top with the remaining tomato.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  3. Milk + tomatotop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,226 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 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

Eggs
Set into soft curds that give the dish its main structure and body.
Sweet milk
Adds moisture so the eggs stay tender rather than dry and tough.
Butter
Fat that coats the pan and enriches the eggs, adding richness and flavor.
Tomato
Adds acidity and juiciness that contrast with the rich, mild eggs.

The step that matters

Cook until firm without stirring, easing from the edges of the pan.. Eggs cook fast over heat; leaving them mostly undisturbed forms larger, tender curds, while constant stirring can make them small and dry.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk, 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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