Skip to main content
Preserve

Tomato Butter

A thick spiced spread made from tomatoes, brown sugar, cider vinegar, lemon, cinnamon and ginger.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cinnamon and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,380 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Tomato Butter

Ingredients

Directions

Make the tomato butter

  1. In a large pot, combine the peeled and strained tomatoes, brown sugar, cider vinegar, and lemon pieces. Add salt to taste.

  2. Boil the mixture for 2.5 hours.

  3. About 30 minutes before it is done, add the cinnamon and ginger.

Can and store

  1. Can the tomato butter while hot.

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. Cinnamon + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Lemon + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Ripe tomatoes
Provide the main body and bulk of the spread as they break down into a thick purée.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and, as it thickens during long boiling, helps give the butter its spreadable body.
Cider vinegar
Adds acidity that balances the sweetness and helps keep the finished butter bright.
Lemons
Add acidity and citrus aroma that brighten the flavor of the cooked tomatoes.
Cinnamon
Adds warm, sweet spice aroma to the finished butter.

The step that matters

Boil for the full time, then add the spices late. Long simmering reduces the water in the tomatoes and sugar so the mixture thickens into a spreadable butter. Adding cinnamon and ginger about 30 minutes before the end keeps their aroma from fading during the long boil.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Sweet potatofits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cider, vinegar, lemon, cinnamon, 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.

More tomato butter recipes

Sauce 8 See all 33 →

You might also like

Green Corn PuddingGreen Corn Pudding64 recipesCornmeal mushCornmeal mush12 recipes