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Preserve

Preserved Tomatoes

A method for preserving ripe tomatoes in sugar syrup with ginger and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 ↓

Preserved Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Blanch ripe tomatoes in boiling water for 2 minutes.

  2. Dip tomatoes quickly into cold water, then peel and core them carefully.

  3. Weigh the tomatoes and place them in a preserving kettle with an equal weight of granulated sugar.

  4. For every 2 pounds of tomatoes and sugar, add 1 level teaspoon of shaved green ginger root.

Cook and pack

  1. Boil the mixture for 10 minutes, then remove the tomatoes and spread them on a platter to cool.

  2. Continue boiling the syrup while the tomatoes cool.

  3. Return the tomatoes to the kettle, bring to a boil, and pack into jars.

  4. Add a slice of lemon to each jar before sealing.

  5. Seal the jars while hot.

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

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

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

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

  4. Sugar + gingertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together14,054 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  5. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and ginger barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 14,054 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Ripe tomatoes
Form the main body of the preserve, softening as they cook in the sugar syrup.
Granulated sugar
Draws water out of the tomatoes and forms the syrup that preserves them and gives sweetness.
Green ginger root
Adds a sharp, aromatic bite that balances the sweetness of the syrup.
Lemon slices
Add acidity and a bright citrus aroma to the finished jars.

The step that matters

Remove the tomatoes before reboiling the syrup. Boiling the tomatoes too long in the syrup breaks them down and makes them mushy, so they are lifted out to cool while the syrup is reduced separately.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Arrowrootfits better
  2. Sweet potatofits better
  3. Broccolifits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against 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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