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Scalloped Tomatoes

Layered tomato bake with bread crumbs, butter, onion, salt, pepper, and sugar, baked until bubbling and browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Scalloped Tomatoes

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 ↓

Scalloped Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Drain most of the juice from the can of tomatoes and set the juice aside for another use.

Layer and bake

  1. In a buttered dish, layer bread crumbs on the bottom.

  2. Add a layer of tomatoes seasoned with salt, pepper, bits of butter, onion slices, and a little sugar.

  3. Repeat with another layer of crumbs and another layer of seasoned tomatoes.

  4. Top with a final layer of fine dry crumbs.

  5. Bake covered at 400°F (200°C) until bubbling hot and brown.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Butter + breadtop 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 + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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 and acidic, juicy filling that softens during baking.
Bread crumbs
Absorb tomato liquid and form soft layers that hold the dish together.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the top and edges brown in the oven.
Onion
Adds savory aroma and flavor that mellows as it bakes with the tomatoes.

The step that matters

Drain most of the juice from the can. Excess liquid would make the layers soggy and watery, so draining keeps the crumbs from turning to mush and lets the top brown.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Sweet potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, pepper, butter, sugar, bread. 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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