Why it works: Tomato and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 33% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,667 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓
Tomato Figs
Ingredients
Directions
Make the tomatoes
Peel the tomatoes and boil them whole in the sugar until the sugar penetrates, but do not boil them to pieces.
Lay the tomatoes on flat dishes to dry.
Syrup and dry
Boil the syrup until thick and pour it over the tomatoes from time to time.
Once dry, pack the tomatoes in boxes in layers, sprinkling sugar over each layer.
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.
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Tomato + sugartop 33% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together4,667 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Ripe tomatoes
- Provide the fruit that softens in sugar and dries into a chewy, preserved texture.
- Sugar
- Penetrates the tomatoes to preserve them and build a thick, sweet syrup.
The step that matters
Boil the tomatoes in sugar without breaking them. Sugar draws water out of the tomatoes by osmosis and firms their skins and flesh. Boiling too hard breaks the fruit apart, so it cannot hold its shape while drying.
“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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