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Sauce

Tomato Butter

A thick tomato sauce made with tomatoes, vinegar, brown sugar, salt, cayenne pepper, cloves, allspice, and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Tomato Butter

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the tomatoes

  1. Combine the tomatoes and vinegar in a large pot.

  2. Cook until thick like jam.

Add the spices and finish

  1. Mix the brown sugar with the salt, cayenne pepper, ground cloves, allspice, and cinnamon in a separate bowl.

  2. When the tomatoes begin to thicken, add the sugar and spice mixture.

  3. Stir well to combine.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Provide the bulk and body of the butter as they break down and thicken while cooking.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and helps balance the sweetness.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the mixture thicken into a spreadable butter.

The step that matters

Adding the sugar and spice mixture. Add it only once the tomatoes begin to thicken. Sugar draws water out of the fruit and can slow softening if added too early, and the spices are then evenly distributed through a thickening mixture.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, sugar, pepper, clove, allspice, 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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