Why it works: Butter and bread 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 ↓
Tomato Toast
Ingredients
Directions
Pare and slice the green tomatoes.
Cook the tomatoes until very tender.
Add sweet cream; if using sweet milk, add more butter for gravy.
Season with pepper, coarse sea salt, and butter.
Toast the bread and place it in a deep dish.
Pour the tomato mixture over the toasted bread.
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.
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Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together17,923 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Tomato + breadtop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,013 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the tomato
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, milk, butter, pepper, bread):
- Potatofits better
- Capsicumfits about as well
- Asparagusfits about as well
- Tomatothe original
Fit is the average pairing score against cream, milk, butter, pepper, bread. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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