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Stewed Tomatoes

Stewed tomatoes are tomatoes simmered with salt, pepper, butter, sugar, and breadcrumbs.

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

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Place the peeled and sliced tomatoes in a porcelain-lined or granite-ware stew pan.

  2. Set the pan on the back part of the stove and boil for 30 minutes.

  3. Season with salt, pepper, butter, sugar, and bread crumbs. Stir well and serve.

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

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

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 and liquid that softens into the stewed sauce as they cook.
Cracker or bread crumbs
Soak up tomato liquid and thicken the stew into a looser, spoonable texture.
Sugar
Balances the acidity of the tomatoes, adding a rounder sweetness.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, rounding out the flavor of the stewed tomatoes.

The step that matters

Boiling for 30 minutes. Boiling tomatoes for a long time breaks them down and concentrates their flavor, but too hard a boil can scorch the bottom of the pan. Keep the pan on the back of the stove so it simmers gently and stir so the tomatoes do not stick.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits about as well
  3. Sweet potatofits about as well
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, butter, 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.

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