Name: Plum or Egg-tomato Preserves
Ingredients: 4 lbs tomatoes; 3 lbs sugar; 2 sliced lemons

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 ↓

Plum or Egg-tomato Preserves

Ingredients

4 lbs tomatoes
3 lbs sugar
2 sliced lemons

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes as you would for preserves.
Add 3 lbs of sugar to the 4 lbs of tomatoes.
After cooking, let the mixture cool.
Once cool, add the sliced lemons.

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.

Tomato + lemontop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,592 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

Tomatoes: Form the bulk of the preserves and provide the body and moisture of the mixture.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps thicken the preserves while preserving them.
Lemons: Add acidity and brightness, and their natural pectin helps the preserves set.