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Dessert

Tomato Butter

A sweet and tart preserve made from tomatoes and apples, sweetened with brown sugar and flavored with lemon and optional ginger.

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

  1. Scald the tomatoes and remove the skins.

  2. Add the quartered apples to the tomatoes.

Cook

  1. Cook slowly, stirring often, until the mixture thickens to a marmalade consistency.

  2. When the apples begin to break down, sweeten with light brown sugar to taste.

  3. Add the lemon juice and ginger, if desired.

  4. Serve as a compote or preserve.

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

Tomatoes
Provide the bulk and body of the compote as they break down during cooking.
Apples
Break down into pectin-rich pulp that helps the mixture thicken to a marmalade consistency.
Light brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a caramel-like depth that balances the tomato's acidity.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and helps balance the sweetness.

The step that matters

Cook slowly, stirring often. Slow cooking with frequent stirring prevents the sugars and fruit solids from scorching on the bottom of the pan. Gentle heat also lets the apples break down and the mixture reduce and thicken evenly.

Swap the ginger

The recipe marks ginger as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, apple, sugar, lemon):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Corianderfits about as well
  3. Gingerthe original
  4. Celeryfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, apple, sugar, 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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