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Tom a Toes Scalloped

A baked dish of tomatoes layered with bread crumbs, butter, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Tom a Toes Scalloped

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

Layer and bake

  1. Layer half of the tomatoes in a quart baking dish.

  2. Cover with a thick layer of bread crumbs, dots of butter, pepper, and salt.

  3. Add another layer of tomatoes on top.

  4. Finish with a second layer of tightly packed bread crumbs, dotted with butter, and sprinkled with pepper and salt.

  5. Bake for 1 to 1 hour and 15 minutes until browned.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  3. Tomato + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,013 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Provide the moist, juicy body that softens and forms the filling between the crumb layers.
Bread crumbs
Absorb tomato juices and form a structured, toasty topping that sets as it bakes.
Butter
Adds richness and promotes browning of the bread crumb topping in the oven.

The step that matters

Judging when it is done. The record gives a range of 1 to 1 hour and 15 minutes, so the cook should watch for a browned top and bubbling juices rather than relying on time alone. Bread crumbs brown through Maillard reactions at the surface, and the tomato juices need time to thicken and soak into the crumbs.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, 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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