Name: Stewed Tomatoes
Ingredients: 4 large tomatoes; 2 tablespoons butter; ¼ teaspoon black pepper; ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt; 1 teaspoon sugar; Optional: ¼ cup onion or green pepper, chopped; Optional: ½ cup bread crumbs or cubes of bread

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

4 large tomatoes
2 tablespoons butter
¼ teaspoon black pepper
¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt
1 teaspoon sugar
Optional: ¼ cup onion or green pepper, chopped
Optional: ½ cup bread crumbs or cubes of bread

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

Pour boiling water over the tomatoes to loosen the skins, then peel the tomatoes.
Cut them into pieces, removing the core.

Cook and season

Cook the tomatoes slowly for about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Cook chopped onion or green pepper with the tomatoes, if using.
Season with butter, black pepper, coarse sea salt, and sugar.
Thicken with bread crumbs or add cubes of bread just before serving, if using.

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.

Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,923 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,633 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Tomato + breadtop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,013 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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, moisture and acidity that form the stewed sauce.
Butter: Adds fat and richness, rounding out the tomatoes' acidity.
Bread crumbs: Absorb liquid and thicken the stewed tomatoes as they cook.
Sugar: Adds sweetness that balances the tomatoes' acidity.

Swap the onion

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

Capsicumfits better
Potatofits better
Sweet potatofits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, 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.