Name: Tomato Preserves
Ingredients: 10 pounds pear-tomatoes (or large tomatoes, cut in quarters); 10 pounds sugar; ½ pound seedless raisins; 3 lemons, sliced; 1 ounce race-ginger, sliced; 1 quart water

Why it works: Lemon and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,154 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Tomato Preserves

Ingredients

10 pounds pear-tomatoes (or large tomatoes, cut in quarters)
10 pounds sugar
½ pound seedless raisins
3 lemons, sliced
1 ounce race-ginger, sliced
1 quart water

Directions

Make the syrup

Combine sugar and water in a large pot.
Boil and skim until the mixture is clear and syrupy.

Cook and seal

Add the tomatoes to the syrup and cook until thoroughly done.
15 to 20 minutes before finishing, add the raisins and ginger.
Add the sliced lemons just before removing from heat.
Transfer the preserves to crocks and seal securely.

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.

Lemon + gingertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,154 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Pear + gingertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together452 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
Raisin + gingertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,242 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Pear + lemontop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together942 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,481 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

Pear tomatoes: Provide the bulk of the preserve and its tomato flavor and body.
Sugar: Sweetens the preserve and, with cooking, thickens it into a syrup.
Seedless raisins: Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture as they soften in the syrup.
Lemons: Add acidity that brightens the flavor and balances the sweetness.
Ginger root: Adds a warm, sharp aroma that complements the sweet tomato.

The step that matters

Add the sliced lemons just before removing from heat. Lemon acid and aroma are volatile and fade with prolonged cooking, so adding them late keeps the flavor bright. Adding them too early dulls the fresh citrus taste.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pear, sugar, lemon, ginger):

Orangefits better
Peachfits better
Limefits better
Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pear, sugar, lemon, ginger. 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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Tomato Preserves