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Dessert

Tomato Pies

A sweet tomato pie made with tomatoes, sugar, butter, water, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Tomato Pies

Oven, in the book's wordsA warm oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a warm oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Line deep pie pans with pastry crust.

Make the filling

  1. Mix the tomatoes, sugar, butter, water, and spices together.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into the lined pie pans.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until golden.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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 filling and release juice that becomes the sauce as it cooks.
White sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps balance the acidity of the tomatoes.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that gives the filling a smoother, rounder texture.
Mixed spices
Provide warm, aromatic flavour that defines the character of the pie.

The step that matters

Bake until golden. Tomatoes hold a lot of water, so the filling can stay runny if underbaked. Baking until the crust browns and the filling thickens helps the pie set so it slices cleanly.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, mace):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, mace. 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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