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Stewed Tomatoes

A dish of tomatoes simmered with salt, pepper, sugar, butter, and optional green corn, thickened with grated bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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

  1. Loosen the skins of the tomatoes by pouring boiling water over them.

  2. Peel and cut the tomatoes, removing the cores and any unripe parts.

Stew

  1. Stew the tomatoes in a saucepan for 30 minutes.

  2. Add salt, pepper, sugar, and butter; stew for an additional 15 minutes.

  3. Just before serving, thicken with a little grated bread.

  4. For a variation, add an equal amount of green corn at the start and stew gently.

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 + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,013 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + corntop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,324 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
Form the main body of the dish and release juice as they stew.
Grated bread
Absorbs liquid and thickens the stewed tomatoes toward a looser sauce-like texture.
White sugar
Balances the acidity of the tomatoes with a touch of sweetness.
Butter
Adds richness and a smoother mouthfeel to the finished stew.

The step that matters

Adding the grated bread. Bread starch thickens quickly as it absorbs liquid, so adding it just before serving and stirring gently keeps the texture smooth rather than pasty or lumpy.

Swap the tomato

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

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

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