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Stewed Tomatoes

A simple tomato stew made by simmering peeled tomatoes with butter, salt, and pepper.

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 the tomatoes

  1. Pour boiling water over the tomatoes and let them sit for a few moments.

  2. Peel off the skins and slice the tomatoes.

  3. Place the sliced tomatoes in a well-lined saucepan over medium heat.

Stew and serve

  1. Stew the tomatoes for about 20 minutes.

  2. Add the butter, salt, and pepper, and let them stew for an additional 15 minutes.

  3. Serve hot.

  4. Optionally, thicken with grated bread and sugar, or add chopped onion and green corn.

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
Break down during stewing to form the main body and liquid of the dish.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, rounding out the acidity of the tomatoes.
Grated bread
Absorbs liquid and thickens the stewed tomatoes as an optional addition.

Swap the tomato

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

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

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

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