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Dessert

West India Preserves

Preserves made from tomatoes, sugar, lemon, raisins, and ginger, simmered until tender.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,154 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

West India Preserves

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the tomatoes carefully without breaking them.

  2. Dissolve the sugar in water.

  3. Pour boiling water over the fruit.

  4. Let it stand overnight.

Cook

  1. Simmer until the fruit is perfectly tender.

  2. When half done, add the lemons, raisins, and ginger.

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

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

  2. Tomato + gingertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,887 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

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

  4. Raisin + gingertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,242 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 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
Make up the fruit body of the preserve and hold their shape when handled gently.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and, dissolved into syrup, draws moisture from the fruit to help preserve it.
Lemons
Add acidity and a bright citrus aroma that balances the sweetness.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and a chewy texture.
White ginger-root
Adds a warm, pungent aroma and a slight spicy bite.

The step that matters

Simmer until tender. Tomatoes are held in hot sugar syrup, and a hard boil can split their skins and turn the fruit mushy. A gentle simmer lets the fruit soften while it stays whole and holds its shape.

Swap the tomato

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

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

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