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Baked Tomatoes

A baked tomato dish with bread crumbs, sugar, pepper, and optional pork.

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 ↓

Baked Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Peel and slice the tomatoes.

  3. If using, mince the pork very fine.

Assemble

  1. In a buttered pie dish, layer the tomatoes, seasoning each layer with sugar and pepper.

  2. Strew bread crumbs over each layer and scatter a little pork on top if using. Finish with a layer of bread crumbs on top.

Bake and serve

  1. Cover the dish closely and bake for 30 minutes, or until the juice bubbles up at the sides.

  2. Remove the cover, brown the top, and serve.

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. Tomato + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,013 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Tomato + porktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,843 recipes

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

  4. Bread + porktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,371 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  5. Pepper + porktop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,121 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Form the bulk of the dish and release juice that steams and softens the layers as they bake.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the released tomato juice and form a layered topping that browns when uncovered.
Sugar
Balances the acidity of the tomatoes and encourages browning on the top layer.

The step that matters

Covering the dish while baking. Keeping the cover on traps steam so the tomatoes cook through and the juice bubbles up before the crumbs can dry out or scorch.

Swap the tomato

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

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

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