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Tomato Honey

A sweet tomato syrup flavored with lemon rind and juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 Honey

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Weigh and cut the ripe yellow tomatoes into pieces.

  2. Place them in a porcelain kettle.

  3. For each pound of tomatoes, add the grated yellow rind of 1 lemon.

  4. Simmer gently for 30 minutes.

  5. Drain and press gently through cheesecloth.

Make the syrup

  1. Measure the liquid and return it to the kettle.

  2. For each pint of liquid, add 1 pound of granulated sugar and 4 tablespoons of lemon juice.

  3. Boil for 20 to 30 minutes until a jelly‑like syrup forms.

  4. Pour into bottles or tumblers for storage.

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. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

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

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

Lemon and sugar 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

Ripe yellow tomatoes
Provide the main body, juice and flavour of the syrup.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the syrup and helps it thicken into a jelly-like consistency as it boils.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and supports the syrup's set.
Grated yellow rind of 1 lemon
Adds aromatic lemon oils that scent the tomato liquid.

The step that matters

Boil until a jelly-like syrup forms. Sugar concentrates as water evaporates, and the syrup sets only at a high enough sugar concentration. Stopping too early leaves it thin, while boiling too long can over-thicken or scorch it.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, sugar. 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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