Skip to main content
Main

Scalloped Tomatoes

A baked tomato dish with bread crumbs, butter, and a tomato sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Scalloped Tomatoes

Why it works: Bread and butter 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

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare and bake

  1. Layer 1 cup of tomatoes and 1 cup of bread crumbs alternately in a small baking dish.

  2. Spread 1 tablespoon of butter over the top.

  3. Add ½ cup of water.

  4. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for about 30 minutes.

Make the sauce

  1. Run the remaining 1 cup of tomatoes through a sieve into a small kettle.

  2. Add the remaining water, 1 tablespoon of butter, sugar, and cayenne pepper to the kettle.

  3. Boil for 1 minute, then remove from heat.

Serve

  1. Serve the sauce hot with the baked tomatoes on individual dishes.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  3. Bread + tomatotop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,013 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + saucetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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 body and moisture, and their acidity is balanced by the sugar.
Bread crumbs
Soak up the tomato liquid and give the dish a soft, set texture.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour through the baked layers and the sauce.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that softens the sharpness of the tomatoes.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits about as well
  3. Tomatothe original
  4. Shallotfits about as well

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

More scalloped tomatoes recipes

with Meat 5 See all 98 →

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipes