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Stewed Tomatoes

A tomato stew made with tomatoes, salt, pepper, butter, sugar, and bread or cracker crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread 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 ↓

Stewed Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Scald tomatoes in hot water for a few moments until skins can be easily removed.

  2. Cut the tomatoes slightly and place them in a saucepan.

Cook

  1. Season with coarse sea salt, black pepper, and desired amount of butter.

  2. Add a small amount of sugar to balance acidity.

  3. Cook for about 30 minutes until tender.

  4. Thicken with bread or cracker crumbs and stew until soft.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 acidic flavour of the stew.
Butter
Adds richness and a rounder, smoother mouthfeel to the tomatoes.
Sugar
Softens the sharp acidity of the tomatoes, making the flavour more balanced.
Bread or cracker crumbs
Absorb liquid and thicken the stewed tomatoes as they cook.

The step that matters

Thicken with bread or cracker crumbs and stew until soft. Crumbs absorb liquid and swell, so adding them too early or too few can leave the stew watery or pasty. Stewing long enough lets the crumbs fully hydrate and blend into the tomato, giving an even, soft texture.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits about as well
  3. Sweet potatofits about as well
  4. Tomatothe original

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