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Broiled Tomatoes

A simple dish of sliced tomatoes browned on a hot griddle with butter, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 ↓

Broiled Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Preheat a griddle over high heat.

  2. Cut the tomatoes in half or into thick slices, about 1 inch thick.

  3. Add bits of butter to the hot griddle.

Cook

  1. Carefully place the tomato slices on the griddle.

  2. Sprinkle the slices with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

  3. Brown one side of the tomato slices.

  4. Turn the slices carefully.

  5. Sprinkle the other side with coarse sea salt and black pepper again.

  6. Once both sides are lightly browned, remove the slices to a hot serving dish.

  7. Add a bit of butter on each slice.

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 + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

  3. Tomato + buttertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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

Tomatoes
Provide the main body of the dish, softening slightly while their surface browns.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps the tomato surfaces brown on the hot griddle.

The step that matters

Brown one side of the tomato slices. Tomatoes hold a lot of water. If the griddle is not hot enough or the slices are crowded, they steam instead of browning, so start on high heat and leave space between slices.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Carrotfits about as well
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, 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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