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Fried Tomatoes

Sliced tomatoes coated in flour are fried and served with ripe tomato sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and olive are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,539 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Fried Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the tomatoes into ½ inch thick pieces.

  2. Sprinkle with coarse sea salt and coat with flour.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat olive oil or cottonseed oil in a pan over high heat.

  2. Fry the tomatoes until they are brown.

  3. Place the fried tomatoes on a platter and pour ripe tomato sauce over them.

  4. Serve immediately while very 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. Tomato + olivetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,539 recipes

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

  2. Tomato + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,469 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Flour + saucetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,078 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Flour + olivetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,871 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Olive + saucetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,568 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Main ingredient; frying softens the flesh and browns the cut surfaces, giving a crisp exterior.
Flour
Forms a thin coating that browns in the hot oil and helps the outside crisp.
Olive oil or cottonseed oil
Conducts heat to the tomato slices and carries browning flavour to the coating.

The step that matters

Fry the tomatoes until they are brown. Tomatoes that are too ripe are watery and fall apart in hot oil, so the flour coating may not set and the slices may steam instead of browning. Using firm, slightly underripe tomatoes and high heat helps the coating crisp.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, olive, sauce):

  1. Shallotfits about as well
  2. Eggplantfits about as well
  3. Welsh onionfits about as well
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, olive, sauce. 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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