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Spiced Tomatoes

Preserved tomatoes stewed with sugar, vinegar, cloves, and allspice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Spiced Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Combine tomatoes, brown sugar, cider vinegar, cloves, and allspice in a preserving kettle.

  2. Stew over low heat until tomatoes are nearly soft.

  3. Remove tomatoes and place on a dish to cool.

  4. Continue boiling the syrup.

Cook and reduce

  1. Return tomatoes to the syrup.

  2. Boil until they turn dark red.

  3. Remove tomatoes again and let cool on a dish.

  4. Boil the syrup until thick like molasses.

Jar

  1. Transfer tomatoes and syrup to jars.

  2. Seal jars tightly.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

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

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

  4. Tomato + allspicetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together670 recipes

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

  5. Vinegar + allspicetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,548 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

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

What each ingredient does

Ripe tomatoes
Provide the main body of the preserve and soften into the syrup as they stew.
Brown sugar
Sweetens the dish and thickens the syrup as it boils down, adding color and depth.
Cider vinegar
Adds acidity that balances the sweetness and helps preserve the tomatoes.

The step that matters

Boil the syrup until thick like molasses. Sugar concentrates as water evaporates, so the syrup thickens. Stopping too early leaves a thin liquid that can separate from the tomatoes, while overcooking can turn it hard or scorch the sugar.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cider, vinegar, clove, allspice. 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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