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Baked Tomatoes

A baked dish of tomatoes seasoned with salt, pepper, biscuit crumbs, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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. Scald and peel the tomatoes.

Layer and bake

  1. In an earthen dish, layer whole tomatoes.

  2. Sprinkle with coarse sea salt, black pepper, and biscuit crumbs.

  3. Add another layer of tomatoes and sprinkle again with salt and pepper.

  4. Cut butter into small pieces and place on top of the tomatoes.

  5. Cover with biscuit crumbs.

  6. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for thirty minutes.

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. Pepper + biscuittop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together841 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  3. Tomato + biscuittop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together105 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  4. Biscuit + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,009 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  5. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Make up the body of the dish, softening as they bake into a juicy base.
Biscuit crumbs
Absorb tomato juices and form a lightly browned, crisp topping.
Butter
Adds fat that melts over the tomatoes, enriching flavor and encouraging browning.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, biscuit, 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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