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Tomato and Baked Bean Sandwiches

A sandwich made with sliced tomatoes, baked beans, buttered bread, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and beans match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,713 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Tomato and Baked Bean Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel and thinly slice the tomatoes, then chill them in the refrigerator.

  2. Press the baked beans through a fine sieve.

  3. Butter and thinly slice the bread, cutting it into circles slightly larger than the tomato slices.

Assemble and serve

  1. Spread the bean pulp on half of the bread circles and top the other half with the chilled tomato slices, sprinkling with salt and pepper.

  2. Assemble the sandwiches by pairing one bean-covered slice with one tomato-covered slice and serve immediately.

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 + beanstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,713 recipes

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

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Tomato + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,013 recipes

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

  5. Beans + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,733 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

Medium-sized ripe tomatoes
Provide moisture and acidity, forming the fresh juicy filling of the sandwich.
Baked beans
Supply sweetness and a soft, spreadable pulp that moistens the bread.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the bread, helping it carry the fillings without soaking through.
White or boston brown bread
Gives the structure that holds the soft tomato and bean fillings together.

The step that matters

Press the baked beans through a fine sieve. Pressing removes the solid skins and lumps so the pulp spreads smoothly and evenly. Lumpy beans tear the thin bread and leave uneven coverage.

“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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