Name: Stewed Tomatoes with Hard-bread
Ingredients: 1 can of tomatoes; ½ onion, chopped finely; Salt, to taste; Pepper, to taste; Sugar, to counteract acidity (if needed); Hard-bread crumbs, to thicken

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 ↓

Stewed Tomatoes with Hard-bread

Ingredients

Directions

Combine the can of tomatoes, chopped onion, salt, pepper, and sugar if the tomatoes are very acidic in a pot.
Cover the pot and stew for 45 minutes.
Add hard-bread crumbs to achieve the desired thickness.

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.

Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,923 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,633 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Tomato + breadtop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,013 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together68,474 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Onion + breadtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,676 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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, liquid and tangy flavour of the stew.
Hard-bread crumbs: Absorb liquid and thicken the stewed tomatoes to the desired consistency.
Onion: Adds savoury sweetness and aroma as it softens during stewing.

The step that matters

Adding the bread crumbs. Crumbs thicken as they absorb liquid, so adding them too early or in large amounts can make the stew stiff. Add them gradually and check the thickness before adding more.

Swap the onion

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

Capsicumfits better
Carrotfits better
Eggplantfits better
Onionthe original

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

Tomato Soup526 recipes

Brown Bread461 recipes

Cream of Tomato Soup107 recipes

White Bread80 recipes

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Stewed Tomatoes with Hard-bread