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Tomato Toast

A toast topped with a smooth tomato sauce made with butter, sweet cream, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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. Peel and stew the tomatoes until smooth.

  2. Season with salt, pepper, and butter.

  3. Add the sweet cream and a little flour, then let it scald but not boil.

  4. Remove from heat immediately.

Serve

  1. Pour the mixture over the slices of dipped, well-buttered toast.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cream + flourtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Ripe tomatoes
Provide the main body and flavor of the sauce once stewed smooth.
Sweet cream
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy texture to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the cream mixture so it coats the toast rather than running off.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a rounded, savory flavor.

The step that matters

Scald without boiling. Once cream is heated past scalding it can boil and curdle or separate, and flour-thickened sauces can turn grainy. Heating gently and removing from heat immediately keeps the sauce smooth.

Swap the tomato

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

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

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