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Browned Tomatoes

A dish of tomatoes browned in butter and lard, seasoned with salt, pepper, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Browned Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Halve the tomatoes and place them skin side down in a frying pan with melted butter and lard.

  2. Sprinkle with salt, pepper, and dredge with flour.

  3. Place the pan on high heat and let the tomatoes brown thoroughly.

  4. Stir and brown again until fully cooked.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Tomato + buttertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,918 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

Large round tomatoes
Provide the main body of the dish, softening as they cook while their cut faces brown.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour and helps the cut surfaces brown in the pan.
Lard
Tolerates high heat well, helping the tomatoes brown without burning the fat.
Flour
Dusted on the cut faces, it helps them brown and form a light crust.

The step that matters

Browning the tomatoes on high heat. Brown the cut faces undisturbed until deeply coloured before stirring. Browning comes from the Maillard reaction, which needs dry surfaces and high heat, so crowding the pan or moving the tomatoes too early leaves them steamed and pale.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, 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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