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Fried Tomatoes and Peppers

A sautéed dish of tomatoes and green peppers cooked in lard with onion and garlic.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Garlic and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Fried Tomatoes and Peppers

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Seed and cut the green peppers into strips.

  2. Slice the tomatoes.

Cook

  1. In a skillet, heat lard over medium heat.

  2. Add the minced onion and garlic, and fry until soft.

  3. Add the peppers and tomatoes, and cook until tender.

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. Garlic + oniontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Tomato + garlictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,076 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

  5. Pepper + garlictop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,090 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Green peppers
Provide the main body and tender texture once cooked until soft.
Tomatoes
Add moisture and acidity that combine with the peppers into a sauce-like base.
Onion
Softens during frying to add sweetness and savory depth to the dish.
Garlic
Releases aroma when fried in the lard, flavoring the whole dish.
Lard
Fat for frying that carries flavor and helps soften the vegetables.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, tomato, garlic, onion):

  1. Cuminfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Oreganofits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, tomato, garlic, onion. 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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