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Scrambled Egg and Tomato

A simple dish of scrambled egg cooked with tomato pulp.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 118,967 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Scrambled Egg and Tomato

Ingredients

Directions

Make the tomato base

  1. Skin the tomatoes and cook them in a small pan until they turn to pulp.

Cook the eggs

  1. Beat the egg in a bowl and stir it into the hot tomato.

  2. Cook until the mixture just begins to set.

  3. Serve immediately.

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Tomato + buttertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,918 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Tomato + eggtop 34% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,890 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
Break down into a pulp that forms the sauce base and adds acidity and moisture.
Egg
Sets into soft curds that give the dish its body and texture.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother, silkier texture.

The step that matters

Cook until the mixture just begins to set. Egg proteins tighten as they heat, so removing the pan while the eggs are still slightly wet keeps the curds soft. Overcooking turns them dry and rubbery, and residual heat finishes the set.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter. 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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