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Stewed Tomatoes

A simmered tomato dish seasoned with salt, pepper, and optional sugar, butter, and optional bread crumbs or vegetables.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and corn match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,099 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Stewed Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Pour boiling water over the ripe tomatoes and let them stand for a few moments.

  2. Transfer the tomatoes to a pan of cold water and slip off the skins.

  3. Cut out the core and hard parts, then slice the tomatoes.

Stew and season

  1. Cook the sliced tomatoes in a saucepan, stirring occasionally, for 30 minutes.

  2. Season with salt, pepper, and sugar if desired, then add a small piece of butter.

  3. Stir for an additional 10 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. If desired, thicken the tomatoes with bread crumbs or serve over toasted bread.

  2. Optionally, add minced onion or green corn for extra flavor.

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 + corntop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,099 recipes

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

  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 + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Ripe tomatoes
Make up the dish; they soften and break down into a sauce as they stew.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded flavor to the stewed tomatoes.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and thicken the tomatoes into a more spoonable texture.

The step that matters

Cook for the full 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Tomatoes need sustained gentle heat to soften fully and release their juices, which reduce into a thicker stew. Stirring prevents scorching on the bottom of the pan.

Swap the onion

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

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

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