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Tomatoes

A stew of sliced cold beef or veal with onions, thyme, pepper, salt, and tomatoes, cooked in gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,585 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a saucepan, combine sliced cold beef or veal, cold gravy, chopped onions, thyme, pepper, and coarse sea salt.

  2. Brown the mixture.

  3. Add peeled tomatoes that have been placed in hot water.

  4. Stew the mixture for one hour.

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. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

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

  2. Thyme + tomatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,370 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  4. Onion + thymetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

Beef or veal
Provides the meat that becomes tender and savory as it stews.
Cold gravy
Adds moisture and savory depth to the stew base.
Onions
Add aroma and mild sweetness as they soften and brown.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and moisture, rounding out the stew's flavor.

The step that matters

Brown the mixture. Browning drives Maillard reactions that build deep, savory flavor. If the mixture stays pale, the stew will taste flat even after the long simmer.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Black-eyed peafits better
  3. Chickpeafits better
  4. Walnutthe original

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

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