Name: Stewed Tomatoes
Ingredients: Tomatoes; Butter; Pepper; Coarse sea salt; Sugar (optional); Bread crumbs or rolled cracker (optional); Minced onion (optional); Young corn (optional)

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

Peel the tomatoes by pouring boiling water over them until the skin comes off easily.
Cut up the tomatoes, discarding unripe and hard parts.
Place the tomatoes in a pot, preferably tin or porcelain lined.
Season with butter, pepper, coarse sea salt, and sugar if the tomatoes are very acidic.
Cover and stew gently for 45 minutes, stirring frequently.
Thicken the stew with bread crumbs or rolled cracker if desired.
For added flavor, cook minced onion with the tomatoes or fry it first.

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 + corntop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,099 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

Swap the onion

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

Capsicumfits better
Potatofits better
Carrotfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, butter, pepper, sugar, bread, corn. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.