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Stewed Tomatoes

A simple tomato stew cooked with optional onion, salt, pepper, sugar, fat, and bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Stewed Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the stem ends and quarter the tomatoes.

  2. Peel the tomatoes if preferred.

  3. Add minced onion for flavor if desired.

Cook and finish

  1. Cover and cook until tender: 10 to 20 minutes for ripe tomatoes, 20 to 35 minutes for green tomatoes.

  2. Season with salt, pepper, and sugar as desired.

  3. Stir in fat and add soft bread crumbs before serving or top with toasted bread cubes.

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

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

  2. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 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. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Onion + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,676 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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 and juice that form the stewed sauce as they soften.
Sugar
Balances the acidity of the tomatoes, with more needed for green tomatoes.
Soft bread crumbs
Absorb tomato liquid and thicken the stew slightly.
Fat
Adds richness and a smoother mouthfeel to the finished stew.

The step that matters

Cover and cook until tender. Green tomatoes are firmer and need a longer cook, so checking tenderness rather than relying only on time keeps the texture right. Covering holds in steam and moisture, helping the tomatoes soften evenly into a stew.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, pepper, sugar, bread):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Eggplantfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, pepper, 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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