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Preserved Green Tomatoes

A preserved green tomato recipe using lemons and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 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 ↓

Preserved Green Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the lemons without removing the skins and remove the seeds.

Cook

  1. In a large pot, combine the sliced lemons, green tomatoes, and sugar.

  2. Boil the mixture until the syrup is transparent and thick.

  3. Optionally, add ginger root for flavor.

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

Green tomatoes
Form the bulk of the preserve, becoming tender and absorbing the sweet syrup as they cook.
Sugar
Sweetens the preserve and, as it dissolves and thickens into syrup, helps preserve the fruit.
Lemons
Add acidity and aroma, and their pectin helps the syrup thicken.

The step that matters

Boil until the syrup is transparent and thick. Sugar must dissolve fully and the syrup must reach a thick, concentrated state. Under-cooking leaves a thin syrup that spoils more easily, while over-cooking can scorch the sugar and make the preserve hard or bitter.

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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