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Tomato Toast

A tomato and onion mixture served over toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Tomato Toast

Ingredients

Directions

Make the tomato sauce

  1. Cook the tomatoes, onion, sugar, salt, and pepper until the onion is cooked, about 30 minutes.

  2. Add the butter and baking soda.

  3. Stir in the cream; do not boil after adding it.

Serve

  1. Prepare slices of toast and cover them with the tomato mixture.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Form the main body of the sauce and provide acidity and liquid.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the sauce a smooth, silky mouthfeel.
Baking soda
Neutralizes some of the tomato's acid, mellowing the flavor and softening the sauce.
Cream
Adds richness and body, mellowing the tomato sauce into a creamy texture.
Sugar
Balances the acidity of the tomatoes with a touch of sweetness.

The step that matters

Stir in the cream; do not boil after adding it.. Cream can curdle or separate when boiled, especially in an acidic tomato base. Keeping it below a boil preserves a smooth, uniform sauce.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, sugar, pepper, butter, cream. 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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