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Dessert

Tomato Preserves

A sweet and tart tomato preserve made with sugar, lemons, and small yellow egg tomatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,592 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Tomato Preserves

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Select small yellow egg tomatoes.

  2. Pierce each tomato with a knitting needle to prevent bursting.

Make the preserves

  1. For every pound of tomatoes, add ¾ pound of sugar.

  2. Mash a few tomatoes to moisten the sugar.

  3. Place the mixture in a porcelain kettle on the stove.

  4. When the syrup boils, add the remaining tomatoes.

  5. Slice 4 lemons per peck of tomatoes, removing the seeds.

  6. Squeeze the juice of 5 lemons per peck of tomatoes.

  7. Cook until the preserves look clear.

  8. Adjust lemon flavor as needed.

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. Tomato + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  4. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Tomato + sugartop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,667 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Small yellow egg tomatoes
Provide the fruit that is cooked down into the preserves.
Sugar
Sweetens the fruit and draws out moisture to form a thick syrup.
Lemons
Add acidity and brightness that balance the sweetness of the preserves.

The step that matters

Cook until the preserves look clear. Sugar must dissolve and the syrup must reach a thick set point. Stopping too early leaves runny preserves, while overcooking can make them dark and stiff.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Arrowrootfits better
  3. Sweet potatofits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, lemon. 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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