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Fried Tomatoes

Fried tomatoes cooked in cream with salt and red pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and tomato 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 ↓

Fried Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Heat the cream in a frying pan with a little salt and red pepper.

  2. Cut the tomatoes in half crosswise.

Cook and serve

  1. Place the tomatoes cut side down in the hot cream.

  2. Fry until tender, then turn them over for a few minutes.

  3. Serve very hot, adding a sprinkle of salt and pepper while cooking.

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. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  2. Cream + peppertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together21,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Cream + tomatotop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,034 recipes

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

Cream and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 21,449 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Cream
Forms a rich sauce that coats the tomatoes and adds fat and body.
Tomatoes
Provide the main body and mild acidity, softening as they cook in the hot cream.

The step that matters

Frying until tender, then turning. The tomatoes are placed cut side down in hot cream and must cook until tender before turning. Cooking too hot or too long can break down the cut surface and curdle or thicken the cream unevenly, so heat should stay steady and the turn should come once the flesh has softened.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, 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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