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Stewed Tomatoes

A simple dish of tomatoes simmered with sugar, salt, pepper, butter, and bread or crackers.

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

  1. Place the tomatoes in a stew pan and heat them.

  2. Add the sugar, salt, pepper, and butter.

  3. Stir in the broken bread or crackers.

  4. Cook slowly for a few minutes.

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 + walnuttop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,039 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + walnuttop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together498 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

Tomatoes
Form the liquid base of the stew, providing acidity and the main body of the dish.
Dry bread or crackers
Absorb tomato liquid and thicken the stew, giving it body and a soft texture.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother, rounder mouthfeel.
Sugar
Balances the tomatoes' acidity with a touch of sweetness.

The step that matters

Stirring in the bread or crackers. Dry bread soaks up liquid and thickens over time. Adding it too early or cooking too long can make the stew pasty, while adding it too late leaves dry lumps that never soften.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Chickpeafits better
  3. Lima beansfits better
  4. Walnutthe original

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