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Dessert

Tomato Butter

A sweet spread made from tomatoes, apples, sugar, lemon juice, and ginger, cooked until thickened.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,154 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Tomato Butter

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Scald the tomatoes and remove the skins.

  2. In a porcelain kettle, combine the tomatoes with the peeled, cored, and quartered apples.

  3. Cook over moderate heat for 1 hour, stirring occasionally to prevent sticking.

Make the butter

  1. Add the sugar, lemon juice, and ginger.

  2. Cook slowly, stirring continually until the mixture thickens to a marmalade consistency.

Jar and store

  1. Transfer to jars or tumblers, and when cool, cover with two layers of tissue paper.

  2. Moisten the top with water or egg white and let dry, then store in a cool, dark place.

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. Lemon + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Apple + gingertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,424 recipes

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

  3. Tomato + gingertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,887 recipes

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

  4. Tomato + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Tomato + appletop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together548 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

Ripe tomatoes
Provide the main body and bulk of the butter as they cook down.
Apples
Add natural pectin that helps the mixture thicken to a spreadable consistency.
Sugar
Sweetens the butter and helps it thicken and keep through storage.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and supports pectin setting.

The step that matters

Cook slowly while stirring continually at the end. As the sugar concentrates, the mixture can scorch on the bottom of the kettle and burn, and it thickens quickly near the end. Constant stirring over gentle heat prevents sticking and scorching and lets the butter reach a marmalade-like set.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (apple, sugar, lemon, ginger):

  1. Sweet potatofits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, sugar, lemon, ginger. 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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