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Stewed Tomatoes

A tomato dish cooked with vinegar, sugar, butter, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Vinegar and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 20,806 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Stewed Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. If using fresh tomatoes, peel and cut them into pieces.

  2. Add sugar, a little salt, and vinegar to the tomatoes.

Cook and serve

  1. Cook until tender and thick.

  2. Add butter and serve with dinner.

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. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Tomato + vinegartop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,063 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Tomato + buttertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,918 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Vinegar + buttertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,513 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

What each ingredient does

Stewed tomatoes
Provides the main body and liquid that cooks down into a thick sauce.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the sweetness.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that offsets the sharpness of the tomatoes and vinegar.
Butter
Adds fat for a rounder, richer finish when stirred in at the end.

The step that matters

Cook until tender and thick. Simmering drives off water, which concentrates the flavour and thickens the liquid. Stopping too early leaves the sauce thin and watery, while cooking too long can make it overly reduced and sticky.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Cucumberfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, sugar, butter. 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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