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Green Tomato Preserve

A preserve made by boiling green tomatoes with sugar and lemon.

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 ↓

Green Tomato Preserve

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Peel the green tomatoes and place them in a porcelain kettle lined with grapevine leaves.

  2. Cover the tomatoes with water and boil for 30 minutes.

  3. Remove the tomatoes.

  4. Discard the leaves and water.

  5. Wash the kettle.

  6. Line the kettle with grapevine leaves again.

  7. Return the tomatoes.

  8. Cover them with water.

  9. Boil as before.

Make the preserve

  1. Add 1.5 pounds of white loaf sugar for each pound of tomatoes.

  2. Boil gently.

  3. Skim until clear.

  4. Add the grated rind and juice of one lemon for each pound of tomatoes.

  5. Simmer for an additional hour.

  6. Stir in 1 pound of powdered sugar for every 3 pounds of fruit.

  7. Transfer to jars.

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

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

  3. Tomato + sugartop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,667 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon 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

Green tomatoes
Form the bulk of the preserve and give its tart, fresh base flavour.
White loaf sugar
Sweetens the preserve and thickens it as the syrup cooks down.
Lemon
Adds acidity and bright aroma that balance the sweetness.
Powdered sugar
Dissolves into the cooked fruit to add final sweetness.

The step that matters

Skim until clear. Foam and impurities rise to the surface as the sugar and fruit cook. Removing them keeps the preserve clear and stops off flavours from being stirred back in.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against 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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