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Tomato Mustard

A tomato-based mustard condiment made by boiling tomatoes, onions, peppers, garlic, spices, and vinegar, then adding mustard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Tomato Mustard

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil the tomatoes with the onions, red peppers, and garlic for 1 hour.

  2. Add the salt, black pepper, ginger, allspice, mace, and cloves, then boil for another hour.

  3. Allow the mixture to cool, then stir in the vinegar and mustard.

  4. If desired, add cayenne for extra heat.

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  4. Ginger + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Tomato + garlictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,076 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Form the bulk of the sauce and provide moisture and acidity as they cook down.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that brightens the flavour and helps preserve the mixture.
Mustard
Adds pungent flavour and a sharp, tangy bite.
Black pepper
Contributes a warm, sharp spiciness to the sauce.
Cloves
Adds warm, aromatic spice notes that deepen the overall flavour.
Onions
Provide savoury sweetness and body as they soften during boiling.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, onion, pepper, clove, garlic, ginger, allspice):

  1. Cuminfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, onion, pepper, clove, garlic, ginger, allspice. 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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