Name: Tomato Figs
Ingredients: small pear tomatoes; sugar

Why it works: Pear and tomato work together. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 88 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Tomato Figs

Oven, in the book's wordsA cool oven

Ingredients

small pear tomatoes
sugar

Directions

The book says “a cool oven”. The 200°F (93°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

Peel the small pear tomatoes and scald them slightly to remove the peel easily.

Dry

Place the tomatoes on dishes and sprinkle with sugar.
Set in a cool oven at 200°F (93°C) until warm enough to bear the hand.
When dry on one side, turn the tomatoes and sprinkle with sugar again.
Repeat until the tomatoes are as dry as desired, then pack them in sugar.

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.

Pear + tomatotop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together88 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Pear + sugartop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,079 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
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

Small pear tomatoes: Provide the main fruit, which dries down into a chewy, concentrated texture.
Sugar: Sweetens the tomatoes and draws out moisture as it dissolves, aiding drying and preserving.