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Dessert

Green Tomato Figs

A preserve of green tomatoes cooked with sugar, lemon, ginger, mace, cinnamon, and lemon slices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,380 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Green Tomato Figs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pierce each tomato with a fork.

  2. Combine all ingredients in a porcelain kettle and bring to a boil.

Cook

  1. Add the sliced lemon and boil until the fruit is clear.

  2. Remove the fruit with a skimmer and lay it on platters to cool.

  3. Boil the syrup until thick, adding lemon juice 10 minutes before it's done.

Jar and serve

  1. Place the fruit into jars and pour the hot syrup over it.

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. Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Lemon + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

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

  4. Mace + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Green tomatoes
Forms the bulk of the preserve and absorbs the syrup, giving it body and a tender texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the preserve and, as the syrup boils down, thickens it and helps preserve the fruit.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the sweetness.
Lemon, sliced
Adds acidity and citrus aroma while the fruit cooks.
Ginger and mace
Contributes warm, spicy aroma to the syrup.
Cinnamon stick
Infuses the syrup with warm, sweet spice aroma.

The step that matters

Boil the syrup until thick, adding lemon juice 10 minutes before it's done. Boiling evaporates water and concentrates the sugar, so the syrup thickens and gains preserving strength. Adding the acid near the end keeps its bright flavour from cooking away and helps balance the sweetness.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cardamomfits better
  2. Corianderfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, sugar, lemon, ginger, cinnamon. 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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