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Scrambled Tomatoes

Scrambled tomatoes cooked with eggs and butter, served over buttered toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Scrambled Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Season the sliced tomatoes with salt and pepper.

  2. Cook the tomatoes over medium heat until sufficiently soft.

  3. Add the beaten eggs and butter to the tomatoes, stirring gently.

  4. Cook until the eggs are set, then serve over buttered toast.

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

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

  2. Pepper + walnuttop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,039 recipes

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

  3. Tomato + walnuttop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together498 recipes

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

  4. Butter + walnuttop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Break down into soft, juicy base that moistens the eggs as they set.
Eggs
Set into soft curds that give the dish its body and richness.
Butter
Adds fat for richer flavour and gentler, silkier curds.

The step that matters

Cook the eggs until just set. Eggs turn rubbery and watery when overcooked. Stirring gently over moderate heat keeps the curds tender and prevents the juices from weeping out.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, egg, butter, walnut. 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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