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Tomato Mustard

A preserved tomato and pepper condiment seasoned with spices, onions, mustard, cayenne, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Allspice and clove 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 ↓

Tomato Mustard

Ingredients

Directions

Make the tomato base

  1. Boil the tomatoes and red peppers in water for 1 hour.

  2. Strain the mixture through a cloth to remove the seeds.

  3. Add the salt, black pepper, ginger, allspice, mace, cloves, and chopped onions.

  4. Boil for another hour.

Finish and bottle

  1. When cool, add the mustard, cayenne pepper, and vinegar. Mix well and bottle 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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Ginger + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Allspice + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Form the bulk of the sauce and provide its body and tangy flavour.
Onions
Add savoury sweetness and aroma as they soften during the long boil.
Mustard
Provides sharp pungency and flavour that defines the condiment.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and helps preserve the sauce.
Red peppers
Add sweetness and body to the tomato base.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, pepper, ginger, allspice, clove, onion, mustard):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Turmericfits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, pepper, ginger, allspice, clove, onion, mustard. 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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