Skip to main content
Dessert

Tomato Preserve

A sweet tomato preserve made with tomatoes, sugar, water, cinnamon, and lemon, cooked slowly until thick.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cinnamon and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,950 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Tomato Preserve

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Soak the tomatoes in lime water overnight.

  2. Wash the tomatoes in two or three changes of water.

  3. Pour boiling water over the tomatoes.

Make the preserve

  1. In a pot, combine the sugar and a little water to make a thick syrup.

  2. Add the tomatoes to the syrup.

  3. Cook slowly for 2 to 3 hours until the syrup is nice.

  4. Add the cinnamon sticks.

  5. Add the lemon cut in half.

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. Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  4. Tomato + cinnamontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,348 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Half-ripe tomatoes
Provide the bulk of the preserve and its tart, fruity flesh that softens during long cooking.
Sugar
Sweetens the preserve and, as a thick syrup, helps preserve the tomatoes and set the texture.
Lemon
Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness and helps the preserve keep its flavor.
Cinnamon sticks
Contribute warm aroma that infuses the syrup during slow cooking.

The step that matters

Cook slowly for 2 to 3 hours until the syrup is nice. Sugar concentrates as water evaporates, and slow cooking lets the syrup thicken without scorching. Cooking too fast can burn the sugar or leave the tomatoes tough and the syrup thin.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cinnamon, 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.

More tomato preserve recipes

Green 9Yellow 5 See all 30 →

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipesCinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipes