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Tomato Butter

A preserved tomato butter made by boiling tomatoes with vinegar, sugar, apples, spices, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Tomato Butter

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel and cut the tomatoes.

Cook

  1. Combine tomatoes, vinegar, brown sugar, apples, cayenne, cloves, cinnamon, allspice, and salt in a large pot.

  2. Tie the spices in a muslin bag and add to the pot.

  3. Boil the mixture for three hours, stirring occasionally.

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 + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  5. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Form the main body of the butter and, as they cook down, supply most of its moisture and flavor.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that balances the sugar and sharpens the flavor of the tomatoes.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and, as it thickens with the cooking, helps create the spreadable butter texture.
Apples
Contribute pectin, which helps the mixture thicken as it cooks.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture for three hours, stirring occasionally. Long boiling evaporates water and concentrates sugar, so the mixture thickens into a spreadable butter. Occasional stirring keeps sugars and solids from scorching on the bottom of the pot.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, sugar, apple, pepper, clove, cinnamon, 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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