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Stewed Tomatoes

A tomato stew made with butter, sugar, salt, pepper, and bread crumbs for thickening.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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

Prepare

  1. Pour boiling water over the tomatoes.

  2. Remove the skins and hard stem ends with a sharp knife.

  3. Cut the tomatoes into small pieces.

Stew and finish

  1. Stew the tomatoes in a porcelain-lined or granite saucepan for 30 minutes.

  2. Add 2 tablespoons of butter, 1 teaspoon of sugar, and salt and pepper to taste.

  3. Stew for an additional 15 to 20 minutes, or until the desired thickness is reached.

  4. Thicken with bread crumbs.

  5. Add a slice of onion if desired.

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

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

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

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

  5. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Main body of the dish, breaking down during stewing to form the sauce.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and thicken the stewed tomatoes.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the finished stew.
Sugar
Balances the acidity of the tomatoes with mild sweetness.

The step that matters

Stewing until the desired thickness. Tomatoes release a lot of water as they cook, and bread crumbs only thicken once the liquid has reduced. Adding them too early or stopping too soon leaves the dish watery. Checking thickness during the final 15 to 20 minutes lets the cook control the texture.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Sweet potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

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