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Green Tomato Stew

A stew of green tomatoes, potatoes, butter, and seasonings, thickened with flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and potato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,798 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Green Tomato Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash and finely slice the green tomatoes and potatoes.

Cook and season

  1. Put them in a pot with 1 pint of water and cook for about 20 minutes until tender.

  2. Add pepper, salt, and butter.

  3. If the mixture boils down too much, add a little more water.

Thicken and serve

  1. Thicken with a little flour mixed with cold water.

  2. Serve hot.

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 + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,798 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Green tomatoes
Provide the main body and tart flavour of the stew.
Potatoes
Soften during cooking and help give the stew body and substance.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel to the finished stew.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid as starch swells with heat.

The step that matters

Thickening with flour. Flour must be mixed with cold water before being added, so it disperses without lumps. Starch thickens the liquid only when it heats, so the stew should be simmering when it is stirred in.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, pepper, butter, flour. 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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