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Tomatoes Stewed

A simple tomato stew made with tomatoes, butter, pepper, salt, sugar, and optional bread or cracker crumbs.

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 ↓

Tomatoes Stewed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Pour boiling water over the tomatoes to remove the skin.

  2. Cut the skinned tomatoes into a saucepan.

  3. When they begin to boil, pour away a little of the juice.

Season and cook

  1. Add butter, pepper, salt, and sugar.

  2. Let them cook for about 15 minutes, stirring in the seasoning.

  3. Optionally, add a few bread or cracker crumbs.

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
Form the main body of the dish and release juice that cooks down into a sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel to the cooked tomatoes.
Sugar
Balances the tomatoes' acidity and adds a touch of sweetness.
Bread or cracker crumbs
Thicken the juices and soak up liquid, giving the stew more body.

The step that matters

Pour away a little of the juice. Tomatoes release a lot of liquid as they heat. Removing some before seasoning and simmering keeps the stew from becoming watery and helps it thicken as it cooks.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, pepper, 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 butter, 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.

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