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Fried Tomatoes

Fried tomatoes are sliced smooth green tomatoes coated in an egg, milk, and cracker batter, then fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Fried Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the tomatoes as you would for pickles.

  2. Soak the slices in a mixture of salt and water for 30 minutes.

Batter and fry

  1. In a bowl, mix the egg, milk, and rolled crackers to create a batter.

  2. Dip the soaked tomato slices in the batter.

  3. Fry the battered tomatoes in butter or sweet lard until thoroughly cooked.

  4. Keep the cooked tomatoes covered in a dish until ready to serve.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Tomato + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  5. 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

Smooth green tomatoes
Provide the main body of the dish, firm enough to hold up to frying.
Egg
Binds the milk and cracker crumbs together so the batter clings to the tomato slices.
Rolled crackers
Form the crisp, golden crumb coating that browns during frying.
Milk
Moistens the egg and crumbs so they form a spreadable batter.

The step that matters

Frying until thoroughly cooked. The batter browns quickly, so the tomatoes must be fried long enough to become fully tender inside without the coating burning on the outside.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk, butter. 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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