Why it works: Tomato and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 22% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,918 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓
Preserved Tomatoes
Ingredients
Directions
Make the tomato sauce
Pour half the contents of the tin of preserved tomatoes into a frying pan.
Add plenty of salt and a slice of butter.
Fry the tomatoes until they are cooked and covered with rich gravy.
Serve
Soak the toast in the gravy, then turn it onto a dish.
Serve very hot.
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.
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Tomato + buttertop 22% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,918 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
- Preserved tomatoes
- Provide the main body and liquid gravy that the toast soaks up.
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat to the gravy, giving it a smoother, rounder flavour.
- Toast
- Soaks up the tomato gravy, giving the dish its base and texture.
The step that matters
Fry the tomatoes until cooked and covered with rich gravy. Frying drives off excess water and concentrates the tomato flavour, so the gravy thickens enough to coat the toast rather than making it soggy.
“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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