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Tomato Sandwiches

A sandwich with sliced tomatoes, buttered bread, and seasoning.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Tomato Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Pour boiling water over the tomatoes to blanch them.

  2. Peel the tomatoes and slice them.

Assemble and serve

  1. Spread creamed butter on slices of bread.

  2. Layer the tomato slices on the buttered bread.

  3. Sprinkle with lemon juice or vinegar, salt, and pepper.

  4. Top with another slice of bread 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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Tomato + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,592 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Ripe, firm tomatoes
Provide the main filling and fresh, slightly acidic flavor of the sandwich.
Creamed butter
Adds fat and richness, and a moisture barrier that keeps the bread from soaking up tomato juice.
White or brown bread
Provides the structure that holds the tomato slices together.
Lemon juice or vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor of the tomatoes.

The step that matters

Blanch and peel the tomatoes. Boiling water loosens the skins so they peel easily. Thoroughly peeled, well-drained slices keep the sandwich from becoming soggy and the bread from tearing.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Asparagusfits about as well
  3. Shallotfits about as well
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, bread, lemon, 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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