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Stewed Tomatoes

A tomato stew flavored with salt, pepper, butter or cream, optional mace, nutmeg, onion, and thickening agent.

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

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Peel and slice the tomatoes.

  2. Stew the tomatoes in a pot until very soft.

  3. Season with salt, pepper, and butter (or cream).

  4. Add mace or nutmeg for flavor if desired.

  5. For extra flavor, add chopped onion.

  6. If desired, thicken the stew with your choice of thickening agent.

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 + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 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 + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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 flavor of the stew as they break down when stewed.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel to the stewed tomatoes.
Thickening agent
Absorbs liquid and swells during cooking, giving the stew a thicker body.

The step that matters

Stew until very soft. Tomatoes need enough time over gentle heat for their cell walls to break down and release juices, which gives the stew its texture. Stopping early leaves firm pieces and a thin, watery liquid.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, pepper, butter, onion, 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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