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Tomato Paste

A thick, seasoned tomato paste made by cooking tomatoes with vinegar and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Mace and clove are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,400 recipes. Both carry methyleugenol, which smells clove, spice. The science ↓

Tomato Paste

Oven, in the book's wordsA warm oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a warm oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Scald and peel the tomatoes.

  2. Place the tomatoes in a stone jar.

  3. Cover the jar with paper.

  4. Leave the jar in a warm oven at 400°F (200°C) for 1 hour.

  5. Remove the liquid that floats on top.

  6. Press the fruit through a sieve.

Season and cook

  1. Add 2 cups of vinegar.

  2. Season with salt, mace, cayenne, cloves, and bay leaf.

  3. Transfer the mixture to a clean saucepan.

  4. Stir continuously from the bottom for 3 hours until thick.

Store

  1. Once cooled, store in jars.

  2. Cover the jars well.

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. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  2. Tomato + clovetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  3. Vinegar + clovetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,386 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Tomato + vinegartop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,063 recipes

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

  5. Vinegar + macetop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,415 recipes

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 and flavour of the paste once pressed and reduced.
Sharp vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and helps preserve the paste.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the paste and draws out moisture, aiding thickening and preservation.
Ground mace
Contributes warm, aromatic spice flavour.
Ground cayenne
Adds heat and pungency to the paste.
Ground cloves
Contributes intense aromatic spice flavour.

The step that matters

Stirring from the bottom for 3 hours. Tomato pulp is thick and sugary, so it scorches easily on the base of the pan. Constant stirring from the bottom prevents burning and lets moisture evaporate evenly until the paste thickens.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, mace, clove):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, mace, clove. 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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