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Spiced Tomatoes

A preserve of tomatoes stewed with brown sugar, cider vinegar, cloves, and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Spiced Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a preserving kettle, combine tomatoes, brown sugar, cider vinegar, cloves, and cinnamon.

  2. Stew the mixture until the tomatoes are cooked.

  3. Remove the tomatoes and place them on dishes to cool, while letting the syrup simmer slowly.

  4. Once the tomatoes are cold, return them to the syrup for a short while.

  5. Allow the tomatoes to cool again before pouring cold molasses over them.

  6. Seal the jars with bladder or waxed paper.

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 + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Tomato + cinnamontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,348 recipes

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

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

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

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

Large red tomatoes
Provide the main body and bulk of the preserves, softening as they cook.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps thicken the syrup as it simmers down.
Cider vinegar
Adds acidity that balances the sweetness and helps preserve the fruit.
Cloves
Contribute warm, aromatic spice flavor to the syrup.
Stick cinnamon
Contributes sweet, woody aroma and spice flavor to the syrup.

The step that matters

Return the tomatoes to the syrup only briefly. Tomatoes that stay too long in hot syrup will break down and turn mushy, losing their shape. A short soak lets them absorb flavor while keeping their structure.

Swap the tomato

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

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

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