Name: Tomato Cream
Ingredients: 2 dozen tomatoes; 1 dozen apples; 1 dozen onions; 1 tablespoon ginger; 1 tablespoon allspice; 1 tablespoon cinnamon; 1 teaspoon cloves; 1 pint vinegar; 1 pound sugar

Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Tomato Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

Cook the onions separately.
Boil the tomatoes, apples, and cooked onions together.

Strain and finish

Strain the mixture through a sieve.
Boil the strained mixture again.
Add vinegar and sugar, stirring until dissolved.
Bottle the mixture 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.

Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,189 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together7,874 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,536 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,380 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,038 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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 bulk of the cream.
Apples: Add natural pectin that helps thicken the mixture and give it body.
Onions: Contribute savoury depth and mild sweetness to the base.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that sharpens flavour and helps preserve the mixture.
Sugar: Adds sweetness that balances the acidity and vinegar.
Ginger: Adds warm, aromatic spice to the flavour.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, apple, ginger, allspice, cinnamon, clove, vinegar):

Capsicumfits better
Carrotfits better
Sweet potatofits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, apple, ginger, allspice, cinnamon, clove, vinegar. 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.