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Dessert

Tomato Custard

A custard made with stewed tomatoes, sugar, eggs, and milk, baked until set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,226 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Tomato Custard

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the custard

  1. In a bowl, combine the stewed and strained tomatoes with sugar.

  2. Beat in the eggs until well mixed.

  3. Stir in the milk until fully combined.

  4. Pour the mixture into small cups.

Bake

  1. Bake in the preheated oven until set, about 20-25 minutes.

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

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

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

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

  3. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + sugartop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,667 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Tomatoes
Provide the main flavour and moisture of the custard, with natural acidity.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the acidity of the stewed tomatoes.
Eggs
Set when heated, giving the custard its structure and firm texture.
Milk
Adds moisture and richness, softening the custard as it sets.

The step that matters

Bake until just set. Egg proteins set as they heat, so overbaking makes the custard grainy, weepy and rubbery. Remove it once the centre barely wobbles, since it firms further as it cools.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Sweet potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

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