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Tomato Jelly

A preserved tomato product made by boiling tomatoes, adding sugar and egg whites, and setting in jars.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Mace and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Tomato Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Extract the juice

  1. Fill a large jar with slices of ripe tomatoes.

  2. Cover the jar with a cloth and place a piece of dough on top to retain heat.

  3. Place the jar in a large pot of water and boil for 4 to 5 hours.

  4. Strain the juice through a coarse sieve.

Make the jelly

  1. For every pint of juice, add 1 lb of brown sugar for sweetness or ½ lb for a savory jelly.

  2. Add the whites of 8 eggs for every gallon of juice, skim, and boil until nearly half evaporated.

  3. Pour the mixture into glasses and keep them in the sun until thickened.

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. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  4. Tomato + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together879 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

Pepper and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 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

Ripe tomatoes
Provide the juice that sets into the jelly.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the jelly thicken and hold its set.
Whites of eggs
Clarify the juice as they coagulate and are skimmed off, leaving a clearer jelly.

The step that matters

Boiling down the juice after adding egg whites. Boiling must reduce the juice until nearly half has evaporated so that enough sugar and pectin-rich solids concentrate to set. Under-boiling leaves a runny jelly, while over-boiling can make it too stiff or sticky.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, egg, pepper, mace, nutmeg):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Sweet potatofits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, pepper, mace, nutmeg. 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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