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Green Tomato Stew

A stew of sliced green tomatoes cooked with bread crumbs, egg, butter, salt, and pepper.

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 ↓

Green Tomato Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the tomatoes

  1. Slice the green tomatoes and place them in a closely covered saucepan without adding water.

  2. Cook for 30 minutes over low heat.

  3. Season with salt and pepper.

Finish and serve

  1. Stir in the bread crumbs mixed with the beaten egg.

  2. 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. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

  5. Bread + peppertop 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
Release their own juices as they cook, so the stew needs no added water.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and thicken the stew as they are stirred in.
Egg
Sets with gentle heat and adds richness and body to the stew.
Butter
Adds fat for a rounder, richer flavor and smoother mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Stirring in the egg and bread crumbs. Beaten egg can curdle or turn grainy if added to very hot liquid too quickly. Stirring steadily while adding the mixture helps it blend and set smoothly into the stew.

Swap the tomato

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

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

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