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Stewed Tomatoes

A tomato stew flavored with salt, pepper, butter, and sugar, optionally thickened with breadcrumbs, cornstarch, or flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and corn match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,099 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Stewed Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and cook

  1. Scald, peel, and slice the tomatoes, then place them in a saucepan.

  2. Add chopped onion when the tomatoes begin to cook, if you like.

  3. Stew the tomatoes for 20 minutes over medium heat.

  4. Season with salt, pepper, butter, and sugar.

  5. If desired, thicken with bread crumbs, cornstarch, or flour.

Alternative with corn

  1. Alternatively, mix equal quantities of tomatoes and corn and season.

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 + corntop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,099 recipes

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

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

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

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

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

Tomatoes
Form the base of the dish, softening into a sauce as they stew.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the stewed tomatoes.
Sugar
Balances the acidity of the tomatoes with a touch of sweetness.
Bread crumbs
Optional thickener that absorbs liquid and gives the stew body.

The step that matters

Stewing the tomatoes. Tomatoes are mostly water, so they must cook gently long enough to break down and reduce into a thick sauce. Stewing too hard or too briefly leaves the dish watery or unevenly textured.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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

More stewed tomatoes recipes

with Onion 3 See all 189 →

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