Name: Tomato Toast
Ingredients: 3 cans of tomatoes or fresh tomatoes; 1 onion; 1 green pepper; any other seasonal vegetables; bread crumbs; butter; flour; seasoning

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 ↓

Tomato Toast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

Open canned tomatoes or chop fresh tomatoes.
Cook tomatoes with chopped onion and green pepper for 15 minutes.

Strain and serve

Strain mixture through a medium wire strainer.
Reserve liquid for soup and use solid portion for toast.
Spread solid mixture on toasted bread, sprinkle with breadcrumbs, and season to taste.

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.

Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,923 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,633 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Tomato + breadtop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,013 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Onion + peppertop 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, moisture and acidity of the topping.
Onion: Adds savory depth and aroma as it softens during cooking.
Green pepper: Contributes a grassy, fresh flavor and some bulk to the mixture.
Bread crumbs: Sprinkled on top to add a light texture to the toast.

Swap the onion

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

Capsicumfits better
Eggplantfits better
Okrafits better
Onionthe original

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