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Dessert

Tomato Marmalade

A preserve made from tomatoes, lemons, raisins, and sugar cooked until thick.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,592 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Tomato Marmalade

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Blanch the tomatoes, then peel and slice them.

  2. Layer the tomatoes, lemons, and raisins in a preserving kettle.

  3. Add the granulated sugar on top.

Cook

  1. Cook over medium heat for one hour.

  2. Reduce heat and let it simmer until thick.

  3. It should measure about 2½ quarts.

Seal

  1. Seal in Perfect Seal 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. Tomato + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,592 recipes

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

  2. Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Lemon + raisintop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,742 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + raisintop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together26 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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
Provide the bulk of the fruit and pectin-rich pulp that thickens as the mixture cooks.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the marmalade and, as it dissolves and concentrates, helps it set into a thick spread.
Lemons
Add acidity and bitter peel flavour that balances the sweetness and brightens the tomato.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness as they soften in the cooking syrup.

The step that matters

Simmering until thick. Sugar and fruit must concentrate long enough for the mixture to reach a set point. Stopping early leaves a runny spread, while overcooking can scorch the sugar and darken the flavour.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, raisin, sugar. 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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