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Baked Tomatoes {Plain)

Baked tomatoes layered with butter, salt, pepper, sugar, and cream, then baked and browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Baked Tomatoes {Plain)

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. Peel and slice the tomatoes into ¼ inch thick slices.

  2. Pack the slices in a pudding dish, seasoning each layer with salt, pepper, butter, and a little sugar.

Bake and finish

  1. Cover and bake at 400°F (200°C) for 30 minutes.

  2. Remove the lid and brown for 15 minutes.

  3. Five minutes before removing from the oven, pour whipped cream mixed with melted butter over the top.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Release juice as they cook, becoming soft and saucy under the baked top.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and helps the top brown as it bakes.
White sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the tomatoes' acidity and aids browning.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the baked top.

The step that matters

Adding the cream near the end. Cream is poured on only five minutes before the dish leaves the oven because prolonged high heat can cause it to separate or turn greasy. Timing keeps it smooth and rich.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

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