Name: Scallop of Corn and Tomatoes
Ingredients: 4 ears of corn; 2 large tomatoes; 2 tablespoons butter; ¼ teaspoon pepper; ¼ teaspoon salt; 1 teaspoon sugar; minced onion (to taste); fat salt pork (optional); 1 cup fine bread crumbs

Why it works: Corn and tomato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,099 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Scallop of Corn and Tomatoes

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Shave the corn from the cob.
Layer the corn and peeled, sliced tomatoes in a baking dish.
Sprinkle each layer with butter, pepper, salt, sugar, minced onion, and fat salt pork if desired.

Bake and serve

Cover with bread crumbs, seasoned with salt and pepper, and dot with butter.
Bake covered until bubbling hot, then uncover and brown lightly.
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.

Corn + tomatotop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,099 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,923 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,633 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Corn + porktop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,069 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

Corn: Provides the sweet, starchy bulk of the dish.
Tomatoes: Add moisture and acidity that keep the layers juicy as they bake.
Butter: Adds richness and helps the top brown lightly.
Bread crumbs: Form a crisp, browned topping over the moist layers.

The step that matters

Bake covered until bubbling hot, then uncover. Baking covered traps steam so the corn and tomatoes cook through and soften. Uncovering only at the end lets the crumb topping brown without drying the filling.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (corn, tomato, butter, pepper, sugar, pork, bread):

Capsicumfits better
Potatofits better
Asparagusfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against corn, tomato, butter, pepper, sugar, pork, bread. 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.

Tomato Soup526 recipes

Brown Bread461 recipes

Corn Fritters203 recipes

Cream of Tomato Soup107 recipes

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Scallop of Corn and Tomatoes