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Tomato Punch

A chilled tomato and apple punch flavored with ginger and maraschino liqueur.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and lemon 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 Punch

Ingredients

Directions

Make the punch base

  1. Cook the tomatoes, water, apples, sugar, and ginger until the apples are tender.

  2. Rub the mixture through a fine sieve.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the lemon juice, preserved ginger, and maraschino liqueur.

  2. Freeze the mixture.

  3. Serve in glasses.

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. Ginger + lemontop 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

Tomatoes
Provide the main body, acidity and savoury tomato flavour of the punch.
Apples
Cook down to pectin-rich pulp that thickens the mixture and adds body.
Sugar
Sweetens the punch and balances the acidity of tomato and lemon.
Lemon juice
Adds brightness and acidity that lifts the sweetness and tomato flavour.
Preserved ginger
Adds sharp, aromatic heat that stands out against the sweet base.
Maraschino liqueur
Contributes cherry-almond aroma and a sweet, complex note.

The step that matters

Rub the mixture through a fine sieve. Cooked apples and tomatoes must be fully softened before sieving, or the pulp stays grainy and the punch loses its smooth texture.

Swap the tomato

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

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

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