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Tomatoes for

Stewed tomatoes served with a cayenne‑spiced gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Tomatoes for

Ingredients

Directions

Stew the tomatoes

  1. Remove the stalks from the tomatoes.

  2. Place the tomatoes in a large saucepan without stacking them.

  3. Cover the tomatoes with good gravy.

  4. Stew gently until tender, turning them carefully once or twice.

  5. Remove the tomatoes.

  6. Keep the tomatoes warm.

Finish the gravy and serve

  1. Thicken the gravy with a little flour and butter.

  2. Add cayenne pepper and coarse sea salt to the gravy.

  3. Boil the gravy for 2–3 minutes.

  4. Arrange the tomatoes around the outlets.

  5. Serve the tomatoes and gravy separately.

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

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

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

Flour and butter 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

Tomatoes
Provide the main body of the dish, softening as they stew in the gravy.
Flour
Thickens the gravy as it cooks, giving it body.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, smoothing the thickened gravy.

The step that matters

Stew gently until tender. Gentle heat softens tomatoes evenly without breaking them apart. Boiling or stacking them can cause uneven cooking and split skins, so turn them carefully.

Swap the tomato

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

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

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