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Spicbd Tomatoes

A preserved tomato dish stewed with sugar, vinegar, cloves, and allspice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 ↓

Spicbd Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Stew and cool

  1. Combine tomatoes, brown sugar, cider vinegar, cloves, and allspice in a preserving kettle.

  2. Stew over low heat until tomatoes are nearly soft.

  3. Remove tomatoes and place on a dish to cool, continuing to boil the syrup slowly.

Thicken and seal

  1. Once cool, return tomatoes to the syrup and boil until they turn dark red.

  2. Remove tomatoes again and let cool on a dish, while boiling the syrup until thick like molasses.

  3. Once both tomatoes and syrup are cool, transfer to jars and seal tightly.

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

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

  3. Tomato + clovetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  4. Tomato + allspicetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together670 recipes

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

  5. Vinegar + allspicetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,548 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

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 preserve, softening and darkening as they cook in the syrup.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and, as it reduces, builds the thick, molasses-like body of the syrup.
Cider vinegar
Adds acidity that balances the sweetness and sharpens the flavor.
Cloves
Contributes a warm, pungent aroma to the syrup.
Allspice
Contributes a warm, aromatic spice note to the syrup.

The step that matters

Boiling the syrup until thick. Syrup keeps thickening as it cools, so stopping when it looks thick while hot can leave it too thin once jarred. Sugar concentration from boiling off water is what sets the final texture.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, cider, vinegar, clove, allspice):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Horseradishfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cider, vinegar, clove, 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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