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Spiced Tomatoes

A dish of tomatoes simmered with sugar, vinegar, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 20,806 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Spiced Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash and chop the tomatoes.

Cook

  1. In a large pot, combine the tomatoes, sugar, and vinegar.

  2. Add spices according to your preference.

  3. Simmer the mixture until the tomatoes are soft and the sugar is dissolved.

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. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Provide the main bulk, moisture, and fresh tomato flavor that softens during simmering.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps preserve the tomatoes while balancing the acidity.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor and helps keep the finished mixture stable.

The step that matters

Simmer until the tomatoes are soft and the sugar has dissolved. Simmering long enough breaks down the tomato structure and fully dissolves the sugar into the liquid. Stopping early leaves firm pieces and grainy sugar, which affects both texture and how evenly the mixture is sweetened and set.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, 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.

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