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Stewed Green Tomatoes

Stewed green tomatoes with salt, pepper, egg, bread crumbs, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter 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 Green Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the ends off the green tomatoes and slice them thin.

Stew and finish

  1. Stew the sliced tomatoes for 30 minutes.

  2. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

  3. Mix the egg with the grated bread crumbs.

  4. Stir the egg and bread crumb mixture into the tomatoes just before serving.

  5. Add the butter and 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. Bread + buttertop 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. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 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

Green tomatoes
Form the main body of the dish, softening into a tender, tangy stew as they cook.
Egg
Binds with the bread crumbs and thickens the stewed tomatoes as it cooks through.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid from the stew and give the dish a thicker, more body-rich texture.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded flavour to the finished tomatoes.

The step that matters

Stirring the egg and bread crumb mixture in just before serving. Egg proteins set when heated, so adding the mixture at the end and stirring gently lets it thicken the stew without curdling into lumps from overcooking.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, egg, bread, 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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