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Tomato Toast

A toast topped with a tomato, butter, egg, breadcrumbs, and cheese mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread 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 ↓

Tomato Toast

6 small rounds of toast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Dip the tomatoes in boiling water to remove the skin.

  2. Chop the tomatoes finely.

Make the topping

  1. Heat the butter in a frying pan.

  2. Add the chopped tomatoes and fry for five minutes.

  3. Season with salt and pepper.

  4. Beat the egg and stir it into the tomatoes.

  5. Add the bread crumbs and cook for two more minutes.

  6. Grate the cheese and mix it into the tomato mixture without cooking further.

Serve

  1. Spread the mixture on the toast.

  2. Place the mixture in the center of a dish.

  3. Arrange the toast cut into small pieces around it.

  4. Serve hot.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Bread + cheesetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + breadtop 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

Tomatoes
Provide the main body and juicy, slightly acidic flavour of the topping.
Egg
Binds the tomato mixture as it cooks, giving it a set, spoonable texture.
Bread crumbs
Absorb excess tomato liquid and help thicken the mixture.
Cheese
Adds savoury richness and melts into the topping for a creamy finish.
Butter
Adds fat and rich flavour to the frying pan and the topping.

The step that matters

Cook the egg into the tomatoes gently. Egg proteins set with heat, so adding the beaten egg to hot tomatoes and stirring briskly keeps it smooth rather than scrambled into curds.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, bread, cheese, 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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